Despite the overall downturn in the crypto market, the NFT market saw noticeable growth in January. Indices tracking NFT collection prices rose nearly 10%, outperforming many cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum, which increased just over 2%. The NFT-500 index, monitoring the 500 most valuable NFT collections, recorded a 9.35% increase since the start of the year, and the Blue Chip-10 index showed similar growth. Ethereum's value rose by 2.2% over the same period.

Yat Siu, the founder of Animoca Brands, pointed to the maturity and diversity of the NFT space as reasons for the recovery of NFT prices from the lowest levels of the 2022-2023 crypto winter. He noted that most speculators in the NFT and GameFi space have left, strengthening the foundation as those remaining are genuinely interested.

The average price of NFTs fell by 13% to $107, but the upward trend continues. The number of transactions in the NFT space increased by 30%, while sales volume decreased by 36% to $1.1 billion. Wash trading accounts for 39% of the total volume. High transaction fees on the Ethereum network compared to others, such as Solana, have led to a decrease in Ethereum NFT transactions. Frequent airdrop events in other networks also encourage users to switch to different platforms.