Siu says his own personal NFT portfolio is “down like 80% or something,” but adds that these were never purchases he was going to flip. “These are long assets that matter.”
NFTs are a class of one-of-a-kind tokens that first appeared on the Ethereum blockchain in late 2017 with collectible cats. Like other trends in crypto, NFTs have come in waves, becoming a thing with Cryptokitties, and then returning with more development and capital behind them, peaking in 2021/22, at which time monthly sales were over $1 billion.
Today, Siu points to monthly NFT sales of close to $300 million, driven in the main by wealthy digital art aficionados. For instance, billionaire Adam Weitsman has been buying NFTs like Otherdeed lands — NFTs representing land deeds in Otherside, a 3D blockchain-based virtual world created by Yuga Labs — and Bored Apes, very publicly, Siu said.
“Remember that five years ago this was a zero dollar market,” Siu said. “So it’s all relative and depends on the perspective you take. And of course the beauty of this is all the data is there to see on the blockchain.”
On the subject of the flagship NFT Paris event, Siu said the cancelation is not an indictment of NFTs, nor of the conference, which is well run.