The NFT market saw another rough week. Sales volume dropped 44.7% to about $63.33 million in the seven days ending Aug. 29. That was down from roughly $114.5 million in the prior week.
Sales fell while participant counts climbed
The drop in dollar volume came with an unusual twist. Buyer addresses rose 30.5% to 227,316, and seller addresses jumped 54.6% to 247,373. Transaction count, however, fell 14.1% to 802,330. So more addresses were active, but fewer trades happened. It is hard to say what that means exactly. These are blockchain addresses, not confirmed individual users, and the data alone cannot tell us whether each one was a separate person.
The broader crypto market was also sliding. Bitcoin traded near $77,600 and Ether around $2,440 at the time of the snapshot. Global crypto market cap stood at roughly $2.71 trillion, down more than 2% in 24 hours. That correlation is worth noting, but it does not prove the NFT decline was caused by the wider pullback.
Ethereum stayed in front, while Solana moved up
Ethereum remained the leading network for NFT sales with $35.56 million in organic volume. That was down 49% from the previous week. Ethereum also posted $1.66 million in wash trading, which CryptoSlam reports separately. Buyer addresses on Ethereum rose 34.3% to 33,105 despite the weak sales.
Bitcoin followed with $8.68 million, a 59.5% decline. Polygon recorded $7.03 million in organic sales, but its wash trading volume was much higher at $18.19 million. Base did $3.57 million; BNB Chain did $2.81 million. Solana was the strongest major network, with sales up 11.2% to $1.91 million. The six networks together accounted for about 94% of global organic NFT sales.
Collection sales and the BRC-20 effect
Courtyard led collections with $6.09 million, down 37.6%. Argonauts came next with $5.70 million. A Bitcoin BRC-20 collection tied to $X@AGI placed third with $2.58 million, up nearly 75%. But that number was highly concentrated. The collection generated only three transactions, three buyers, and three sellers. One sale alone accounted for $2.14 million.
That single transaction, settled in roughly 27.18 BTC, was the week’s largest NFT sale. It represented about 83% of the collection’s entire weekly volume. The dashboard classified it as an NFT sale, but there is not enough transaction-level detail to know its underlying economic purpose.
The second-largest sale was from Flying Tulip, a collection whose tokens represent financial positions tied to perpetual put options. That sale came to $484,791. Four of the top five sales came from the same BRC-20 collection, showing how a tiny number of high-value Bitcoin trades can shape the weekly rankings.
All in all, the NFT market is still active, but the recent numbers reflect a market in retreat. Participation is up, values are down, and one or two large trades can distort the bigger picture. It is too early to call this a recovery.
