protos.com
Bored Ape Yacht Club shifted just 16 NFTs in a week as Ethereum Naming Service (ENS) domains saw a spike in interest to become OpenSea’s number-one collection by seven-day trading volume.
As reported by Decrypt, ENS domains saw a 170% spike in trading volume, racking up more than 2,305 ETH ($3.8 million) in sales. This was compared to just over 2,126 ETH by BAYC – a more than 40% drop from the previous week.
During this time, almost 9,000 ENS domains were sold compared with just 16 Apes, however, the collections’ respective prices may need to be taken into account. The floor price of a BAYC NFT is currently around 76 ETH ($124,000) while the cheapest ENS domain can be snapped up for a little under $16.
Put simply, ENS domains, as well as being traded as NFTs, allow Ethereum holders to replace their long, unwieldy wallet names with shorter, more memorable phrases.
This, in theory, makes sending crypto to one of these wallets a quicker, more straightforward process.
According to ENS executive director, Khori Whittaker, “With the upcoming merge and recent market downturn, gas prices on Ethereum have dropped, making it more affordable to register an ENS.”
“[Users] registering their personal ENS is a staple for every Web3 user heading into this new chapter of Ethereum’s life,” (via Decrypt).
It’s been a year to forget for OpenSea
OpenSea trading volumes have been down across the board in recent months. Indeed, the platform has seen a 99% drop-off since its peak in May.
In late August, OpenSea processed just over $9.3 million in NFT transactions compared with a mammoth $2.7 billion in May, according to DappRadar.
The fall in trading volume comes at a particularly tough time for OpenSea. Just two months ago, the company was forced to lay off around 20% of its staff in response to greater competition in the market and falling NFT sales.
Today is a hard day for OpenSea, as we’re letting go of ~20% of our team. Here’s the note I shared with our team earlier this morning: pic.twitter.com/E5k6gIegH7
— Devin Finzer (dfinzer.eth) (@dfinzer) July 14, 2022
Read more: OpenSea has 99 problems — insider trading was just one
The number of OpenSea users also plummeted to just 22,140 on Sunday (September 5) from nearly 60,000 in January, DappRadar data showed.
The company’s current problems are a far cry from its stellar success of early 2022. The platform achieved a $13 billion valuation after it raised $300 million in its series C funding in January.
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