Whatever happened to NFTs?

In 2021, NFTs were everywhere, from pixelated punks to bored apes, they dominated headlines and drew billions in investment. By 2022, celebrities and brands were all in, buying JPEGs on the Ethereum network and even hyping metaverse real estate.

But by June 2025, the hype has all but vanished. Floor prices have collapsed, trading volumes have plunged, and the NFT market is now a shadow of its former self. So, what happened to NFTs?

Read more: Crypto live prices

Yahoo Finance UK sat down with Nansen Research Analyst Nicolai Sondergaard, to find out whether the market is dead, what lessons were learned, and if NFTs left anything of real value behind.

NFTs were once the face of crypto’s cultural boom

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique digital assets stored on the blockchain, which signify ownership or authenticity of a specific item. They differ from cryptocurrencies like bitcoin (BTC-USD) in that they are indivisible and irreplaceable. Their uniqueness gave them value, especially in the world of digital art, music, collectibles, and gaming. 

Read more: Bored Ape Bar – Inside the $100,000 membership exclusive NFT club in London

With the NFT boom, a new digital creator economy briefly flourished. Artists tokenised their work. Musicians experimented with fan-owned tracks. Enthusiasts traded memes. What began as a niche use of blockchain technology quickly turned into a global cultural movement, but also a speculative bubble.

“Instead of being used for the potential that NFTs still have, they became memeified and, as such, were instruments for speculation,” Sondergaard said. “This is the reason why many, to this day, still do not touch NFTs, they only see and remember the people that got rich quick and the ones that got burned.”

The numbers tell a harsh story

The collapse has been dramatic. According to analysis reported by NFT Evening, around 96% of NFT collections are now considered “dead”, meaning they show no trading activity, sales, or community engagement. For context, only 30% were considered inactive back in 2023, highlighting just how steep the decline has been.

New NFT mints continue to fall month after month. As NFT Evening also reports, weekly trading volume on Ethereum-based marketplaces stands at around $90m, a fraction of the multi-billion-dollar peaks seen in 2021–2022.

So, what caused the NFT craze to fizzle out so rapidly, and what does it reveal about how investors engage with hype-fueled technologies?

According to Nicolai Sondergaard, the downfall wasn’t due to a flaw in the underlying tech, but rather how it was used. “They became memeified… traded for pure speculation. Many were fully unaware of what NFTs could be used for aside from minting a collection of pixels,” Sondergaard said.

The pattern reflects a broader trend in tech cycles that when the narrative is louder than the utility, markets can inflate quickly, and pop just as fast.

Sondergaard said this dynamic created a lasting stigma: a tale of fast money, rug pulls, and disillusioned investors, as many people associate NFTs with overpriced monkey pictures and not with any meaningful utility.

However, are any industries quietly using NFT technology today in ways the public might not notice, or has the entire concept has been shelved? Sondergaard pointed to several real-world use cases that continue to grow beneath the surface. For example, some communities like Bytexplorers use NFTs as gated passes to forums and events. “Usually minting these NFTs is cheap, and ensures that people that are really interested join,” he explained. 

In real estate, platforms such as Propy enable people to buy property using NFTs, putting legal documents on-chain for transparent and secure transactions. The gaming industry, while still in its infancy with NFTs, is experimenting by granting players ownership of in-game items like skins, a move that reflects the thriving secondary markets for virtual goods in games like Counter-Strike. 

Additionally, in brand engagement, Adidas (ADS.SG) has leveraged NFTs to offer holders discounts and exclusive merchandise, creating new ways to connect with customers. Meanwhile, the music industry uses NFTs to streamline royalty payments, allowing artists to get paid more transparently while enabling fans to truly own music tracks.

“There are a few different real-world use cases that are still going today,” Sondergaard said. “These don’t make headlines, but they represent the core utility NFTs always had, verifiable, programmable digital ownership.”

A shift toward low-cost, social collecting

While Ethereum remains the dominant blockchain for NFTs, activity has shifted. According to a16z’s State of Crypto 2024 report, the trend is moving away from high-volume secondary trading and toward “low-cost social collecting experiences.”

Two Ethereum Layer 2 networks, Base, from Coinbase (COIN), and Zora, are now seeing an increase NFT minting activity. Base, in particular, has averaged over one million daily active transacting addresses since late 2024.

NFTs, as a market, are unquestionably in decline. But the underlying technology, the concept of unique digital ownership, continues to evolve and embed itself quietly into products and platforms. “Ultimately,” Sondergaard said, “when considering NFTs there is a need to distinguish memetic NFTs, which are traded for the pure purpose of profit, and the ones used to facilitate something else.”

Read more:

Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android.