The No. 1 question I get asked at networking events is "What's the current state of NFT?" So this time, I'll tell you about the current state of NFT with some numbers.
From 2021 to 2022, the NFT market was in a frenzy. However, after that, global monetary tightening and turmoil in the cryptocurrency industry overlapped, and investment money flowed out of NFT, which is a risky asset. In particular, the NFT art market, which was a symbol of the boom, fell sharply from its peak of about $2.9 billion (about 320 billion yen at the time) in 2021, shrinking to just $197 million (about 29.1 billion yen at the time) in 2024. This is a decrease of about 93% from the peak.
However, I do not see this as the end of NFT, but the beginning of a healthy structural transformation for the market to move to the next stage. According to the latest tally from data analysis site CryptoSlam, total NFT trading volume in May 2025 was $476.39 million (approximately 74.3 billion yen), up approximately 28% from the previous month's $373.5 million (approximately 58.3 billion yen).
In addition, the number of buyers exceeded 1.04 million, up approximately 67% from approximately 620,000 in the previous month, reaching a level not seen since October 2024.
