Almost $23.7B NFTs Minted in 2022, While Wash Trading Scams Rise

• Nansen tweeted that a total of $23.7B worth of NFTs were minted.
• The crypto analytics company claimed the weekly volume of NFTs reached $1.6B.
• LooksRare had the most wash trading scams observed in January and February.

Nansen, a crypto analytic company, tweeted that a total of $23.7 billion worth of NFTs were minted and traded on Ethereum in 2022.  Moreover, the crypto analytics company claimed that the weekly volume of NFTs had reached $1.6 billion in early May, which was when NFTs were minted the most.   

Nansen claims that the surge of the $1.6 billion weekly volume of NFTs was because of Yuga Labs’ launch of Otherdeed for Otherside. 

Analyzing the data on Nasen, the Year-to-Date (YTD) volume of NFTs in Ethereum was observed to be $8.77 million ETH, at the press time. This data was stated after the Wash Trading Filter was “On.” With the Wash Trading Filter switched off, NFTs experienced a YTD Volume of 22.2 million ETH.

Nansen continued the tweet by claiming that LooksRare, an NFT marketplace, had the most wash trading between mid-January and mid-February. In a research conducted by Dune, another crypto analytics company, about the rising wash trading scams in the NFT industry.

Highlighting the shocking revelation, Dune found that among the $30 billion NFT trading volume, almost 45% of the total was from wash trading.

For the uninitiated, wash trading is a trading scam often done in the NFT industry to purposely raise the prices of a particular or group of digital assets. This is done when the buyer and seller often trade the NFT back and forth to increase the prices, and finally, the NFT and the money are sent to the original seller. Reports have observed that the buyers and sellers conducting this scam are the same people with different wallet addresses.