After the NFT collapse: speculation is dead, should tools be established?

Original author: Sanqing, Foresight News

On January 5th, the NFT Paris Developer Conference, originally scheduled for February, suddenly announced its cancellation. Once a venue for all-night parties along the Seine, now only a cold official announcement remains: “The market crash has dealt us a huge blow. Even with aggressive cost-cutting measures, we still cannot sustain.”

Five years ago, digital artist Beeple’s work “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” sold at Christie’s auction house for a staggering $69.3 million. Subsequently, from CryptoPunks trading at tens of millions of dollars to countless digital collectibles endorsed by mainstream institutions, that was the golden age of NFTs.

From a record-breaking auction sale to a canceled industry conference, NFTs have completed a full cycle from frenzy to liquidation in five years.

Image - Everydays: The First 5000 Days NFT

NFT Market Supply and Demand Imbalance

Supply explosion. According to CryptoSlam data, the supply in 2025 increased by 35% compared to 2024’s 1 billion units. Over the past four years, the total NFT supply skyrocketed from 38 million to 1.34 billion, a growth of approximately 3,400%.

Sales contraction. CryptoSlam data shows that total NFT sales in 2025 were about $5.63 billion, down 37% from $8.9 billion in 2024. CoinGecko data indicates that the total market cap of NFTs, which peaked at around $17 billion in April 2022, fell to approximately $2.4 billion by the end of 2025, an 86% decline. In 2025 alone, the total market cap shrank from about $9.2 billion in January to its end-of-year level, a 68% decrease within the year.

Liquidity dilution. As minting thresholds lowered, the market shifted into a “high-frequency, low-price” mode. CryptoSlam data shows that the average transaction price dropped from $124 in 2024 to $96 at the end of 2025. Compared to the peak average price of over $400 during the 2021-2022 bubble, this is a 75% decline.

Image source: CryptoSlam

Even top-tier NFT projects and blue-chip NFTs are not immune. Take CryptoPunks, for example—the floor price has fallen to about 30 ETH, down 78% from its peak of 125 ETH in 2021; Bored Apes (BAYC) dropped 83% from around 30 ETH to about 5 ETH; Azuki declined 93% from approximately 12 ETH to 0.8 ETH.

Collective “Escape” and Evolution of Platforms

Industry leaders’ moves mark the end of this cycle.

Once dominant in the NFT market, OpenSea’s platform revenue has plummeted from the golden era of $50 million to $120 million per month down to less than one million dollars.

As a result, OpenSea announced a transformation, shifting from a simple “NFT marketplace” to a “Trade Everything” on-chain trading hub that covers physical collectibles and tokens, and has confirmed plans to issue its own token.

Blur, which debuted at the peak, has seen its TVL hit new lows, and its token price has fallen 99% from its high.

Similarly, Magic Eden on Solana, after a year of operation and token issuance, has seen trading volume shrink due to market downturns and bearish expectations, with its token price dropping over 98% from its peak.

Even projects that failed to keep up with the times, like veteran NFT marketplace X2Y2, have been eliminated—completely shut down, with the team shifting focus to AI.

From “Tokens” to “Brands”

Amidst the gloom, Pudgy Penguins has successfully defied the trend and become an industry anomaly. Its success is not based on complex token innovations or short-term speculation, but on transforming digital IP into physical consumer products, gradually building a sustainable brand ecosystem bridging Web3 and traditional retail.

Through CEO Luca Netz’s dual-income model, Pudgy Penguins has deeply integrated IP licensing with physical merchandise. Its toys are now available in over 10,000 retail outlets worldwide, including Walmart, Target, and Walgreens. According to AInvest, this transformation has generated approximately $50 million annually, effectively offsetting the overall shrinkage of the crypto market.

Image - Pudgy Penguins toys on Walmart shelves in the US

During Christmas 2025, Pudgy Penguins invested about $500,000 to project a giant animated display on the Sphere, a landmark in Las Vegas.

Image - Pudgy Penguins on the Sphere

This advertising campaign, targeting millions of visitors, avoided crypto jargon and NFT terms, instead showcasing family-friendly IP characters. Through brand exposure, it indirectly stimulated secondary market liquidity. Over the past 14 days, the NFT floor price increased by 25%, and trading volume rose about 33%.

This shift from speculation to cultural operation seems to be a consensus among industry survivors. Last May, Yuga Labs, the publisher of Bored Apes (BAYC), transferred the IP rights of the top NFT project CryptoPunks to the nonprofit Infinite Node Foundation, aiming to detach from the volatile, speculative nature of prices and pursue longer-term artistic preservation and cultural management.

Physical Endorsements and Functional Return

Beyond IP branding, NFTs are increasingly becoming foundational tools for connecting to real-world assets (RWA).

Physical card trading. Platform Courtyard.io is changing the game. They store authentic Pokémon cards in certified insured vaults and tokenize them as NFTs. Within 30 days of late 2025, the platform processed over 230,000 transactions, generating about $12.7 million in sales, demonstrating strong market demand for high-liquidity, physically-backed assets.

Functional tickets. FIFA has also joined this trend, introducing “priority purchase” NFTs for the 2026 World Cup ticket sales. These NFTs are not for hype but serve as verification tools to prevent scalping and price fraud in secondary markets.

What Has NFT “Died,” and What Remains?

NFTs haven’t completely “fizzled out,” but they have died once.

What died was the illusion that NFTs could be detached from real value, endlessly minted and traded based solely on narratives. In a reality of infinite supply and limited demand, this path was doomed to fail.

What remains is NFTs as a “proof layer.” They are no longer expected to generate value on their own but are embedded within IP brands, physical assets, and functional scenarios, serving as the foundation for rights confirmation, circulation, participation, and verification.

From Pudgy Penguins’ toy shelves, to on-chain circulation of physical cards, to anti-scalping mechanisms for World Cup tickets—NFTs are stepping back from the speculative stage and returning to a toolbox.

For the NFT speculative market, this is undoubtedly a winter. But for NFTs themselves, it’s more like a rebirth after disillusionment.