Just caught an interesting take from Animoca Brands' Yat Siu on where the NFT market actually stands right now. People keep saying NFTs are dead, but he's pushing back on that narrative pretty hard.

His point is worth paying attention to: yeah, monthly trading volumes dropped from over $1 billion at the peak down to around $300 million now. That's a massive pullback from the 2021-2022 hype cycle. But here's the thing—compared to where we were five years ago, this is still substantial growth from essentially nothing.

What's interesting about Yat Siu's perspective is how he frames the current buyer base. It's not retail FOMO anymore. The market is being held up by serious collectors with real wealth, people who are genuinely buying to hold rather than flip for quick gains. He compares it to the Picasso collector mentality, or people buying luxury watches and high-end cars—there's actual community and culture forming around digital assets.

Even his own portfolio tells you something. Yat Siu's NFT investments are down roughly 80%, but he's not treating it like a failed trade. He's looking at it as a long-term asset play. That mindset shift from speculation to collection is probably one of the healthier signs in the space right now.

As for why we saw events like NFT Paris getting cancelled? He traces it back to Europe tightening its crypto stance overall, combined with the security breaches and incidents that have been hitting the industry. That's eroding confidence faster than any market downturn. When people feel unsafe participating, even wealthy collectors pull back.