NFT sales decline despite Ethereum spike in activity

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Ethereum leads sales, but can’t offset broader drop

Ethereum remains the dominant blockchain, with sales totaling $36.1 million, up 41.3% from last week — likely due to the significant drop in ETH’s price. However, this surge in Ethereum-based activity wasn’t enough to counter losses in other chains.

Blockchain Sales Volume for 7 Days. Source: CryptoSlam

Polygon ranked second with $17.4 million in sales, a modest 4.3% increase.

Mythos Chain followed with $14.1 million, up 2%.

Meanwhile, Solana NFT sales plunged 33.4% to $6.5 million.

Analysts also noted a shift in wash trading dominance, with Polygon overtaking Ethereum, recording $2.6 million in suspected wash trades (up 232.6%), while Ethereum's wash trading volume dropped 9.2% to $2.5 million.

Courtyard Tops NFT collections, surpasses CryptoPunks

Among top NFT collections:

- Courtyard (Polygon) maintained the top spot with $15.6 million in sales (+6.1%).

- CryptoPunks climbed to second with $9.1 million, surging 168.3%.

- DMarket ranked third at $8.9 million (+4.4%),

- Newcomer f(x) wstETH position (Ethereum) entered the rankings in fourth place with $5.8 million.

This week also featured a notable high-value sale

CryptoPunks #3100 was sold for 4,000 ETH ($6,042,922).

Other significant transactions

- CryptoPunks #1182 – 142 ETH ($209,310)

- Pixel Vault Founders DAO #4 – 97.08 RETH ($161,511)

- Autoglyphs #462 – 98.5 WETH ($149,724)

- CryptoPunks #5361 – 69.69 ETH ($108,204)

OpenSea calls on SEC for NFT clarification

As reported by crypto.news, this week OpenSea urged the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to officially clarify that NFTs are not “exchanges” or “brokers” under U.S. securities law.

In a letter to SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, OpenSea stated that NFTs typically have only one seller per token, and that their platform does not operate like a traditional exchange or broker.

They emphasized that all NFT transactions occur on-chain via smart contracts, and that OpenSea merely serves as a discovery tool, not a custodian, intermediary, or advisor.

To avoid further regulatory confusion, OpenSea requested that the SEC issue clear guidance, such as a bulletin or explanatory release, affirming that NFT marketplaces are not subject to exchange regulations.

This move follows the Wells Notice OpenSea received last year, though the SEC closed its investigation in early 2025.

As we wrote, NFTs reached their peak popularity in 2021 when the creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks collections managed to earn millions. But over time, the hype around non-fungible tokens began to fade, and today, this segment of the crypto market interests very few people.

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