The broader non-fungible token (NFT) market has defied expectations after it surpassed last year’s revenue milestone.

Data collected by CryptoSlam shows that with less than a week left before 2024 ends, NFT sales for the year have amounted to $8,717,920,832, edging out 2023’s tally by about $230,000.

The Numbers

Last year, the sector recorded more than 91.55 million transactions, bringing in $8.71 billion per CryptoSlam. However, in 2024, the total transactions dropped significantly, only reaching 70.89 million.

Nonetheless, an increase in unique buyers and sellers helped balance the scales, with the former totaling 7.5 million and the latter reaching 4 million. These were the highest recorded figures since 2017, the closest being the 3.8 million sellers captured last year and the 5.4 million buyers from 2022.

There have long been discussions about the prospects of the NFT space, with the hype that once engulfed them dying down considerably. But analysts have urged against writing off the industry altogether, a sentiment justified by the year’s performance, which, while some ways below 2022’s record-setting sales of $23.7 billion from 56 million transactions, has been markedly better than expected.

The next best period was 2021, when the sector raked in $15.7 billion from 34 million transactions involving 3.6 million unique sellers and over 5 million buyers. 2024’s numbers are on course to be the third-highest returns on record, marginally beating last year’s figures.

The space also recently suffered casualties when the Nike-owned RTFKT project announced it would close shop in 2025 after earning almost $50 million since its launch.

Monthly Insights

Looking more short-term, the last month presented a mixed outlook for NFTs. While global sales volumes went up 19.43% to $912 million, unique buyer and seller numbers fell by nearly 28%, reflecting a more selective market approach.

Additionally, transactions saw a 59.25% drop from the previous month, suggesting that fewer but more valuable exchanges may have driven the sector’s growth.

Overall, Ethereum remains the top blockchain for NFT sales, contributing $495.7 million in the last 30 days alone. In second and third place were Bitcoin and Solana, which respectively generated $191.4 million and $107 million in that period.

Interestingly, the two blockchains went in completely opposite directions with regard to attracting buyers. CryptoSlam data shows that NFT purchasers on the Bitcoin network skyrocketed by more than 80% in the last month, while those on Solana dropped by at least 37%.

Immutable and Mythos rounded up the top five blockchains by monthly NFT sales volume. The former registered $35 million worth of sales, a 66.51% jump from the previous month, while the latter shed 36.72% from its tally in the same period, only reaching $25.4 million.

The post 2024 NFT Revenue Tops Last Year’s $8B Mark appeared first on CryptoPotato.

TL;DR

XRP briefly crossed $2.40, fueled by optimism around Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin approval.

Analysts see potential for the asset to hit $8.40 to $48.12, citing strong technical patterns.

XRP Outperforms Its Rivals

The cryptocurrency market continues to struggle following the latest correction, with many leading digital assets charting minor losses on a daily scale. However, this is not the case for Ripple’s XRP, whose price has risen by 6% in the past 24 hours.

Several hours ago, it crossed $2.40, while currently, it trades at around $2.32 (per CoinGecko’s data). Its market capitalization is approximately $132 billion, positioning the asset as the fourth-largest in the sector.

XRP Price, Source: CoinGecko

Perhaps the most important factor fueling the rally is the development surrounding Ripple’s upcoming stablecoin – RLUSD. Just recently, CEO Brad Garlinghouse revealed that the financial product has received “final approval” from the NYDFS. 

“Exchange and partner listings will be live soon – and reminder: when RLUSD is live, you’ll hear it from Ripple first,” the exec added.

The company displayed its intentions to introduce a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar in April this year. Months later, it launched a testing phase during which it minted and burned millions of tokens. Last month, X user Vet claimed that almost all stablecoins have been burned. “On each Ethereum and XRP Ledger, there is only around 100k RLUSD left,” they added.

XRP’s Next Potential Targets

The regulatory approval for RLUSD has triggered huge enthusiasm across the Ripple community. Some X users, including XRPcryptowolf, have made bullish predictions, envisioning that the stablecoin “will make XRP the number 1 crypto.” 

Other analysts who recently set price targets for the token include Ali Martinez and veteran trader Peter Brandt. The former suggested that XRP “looks undervalued after breaking out of this massive multi-year symmetrical triangle.” He set a “conservative target” of $8.40 and an “optimistic” one of a staggering $48.12. 

Brandt claimed that XRP has “the most powerful chart in all of the crypto world.” It is worth mentioning that the market observers weighed in at the end of last week when the coin’s valuation was well above $2.50. At the start of this week, though, XRP experienced a severe pullback, briefly dropping below $2 and later recovering some of the losses. 

The post Why Is the Ripple (XRP) Price Up Today? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

TL:DR;

PEPE continues to make the headlines as it broke its November all-time high yesterday and charted a fresh one following a 20% daily surge.

Although it has closed the gap with Shiba Inu in terms of market cap, it’s still pretty significant. However, the question arises of whether it can become the second-biggest in its niche.

PEPE vs SHIB

CryptoPotato reported yesterday PEPE’s impressive run. After a few weeks of sideways trading and even retracements from its November 13 peak, the meme coin went on an impressive run that resulted in tapping a new high of over $0.000026.

Although it has lost some traction since then, PEPE is still well above $0.000025, and its market cap is just shy of $11 billion. This is still far from SHIB’s $19 billion, but PEPE has continuously outperformed in the past month with gains of 135% compared to Shiba Inu’s more modest 70%.

This has led the community to speculate on whether it is a question of when and not if PEPE will surpass SHIB and become the second-largest meme coin by market cap.

there is no timeline where $pepe doesn’t flip shib this cycle.

global pepe recognition and mindshare is too big, absolutely inevitable imo. pic.twitter.com/EzZU9IE2oE

— Bluntz (@Bluntz_Capital) November 17, 2024

During its surge on Saturday, PEPE also managed to outplace SHIB in terms of trading volume, and by a significant margin, according to on-chain data.

$PEPE is now the 5th most traded cryptocurrency, excluding stablecoins, with an almost 3x larger 24-hour volume than $SHIB. pic.twitter.com/NgBL6QIoC0

— Chandler Bing (@chandlerbingpl) December 7, 2024

What Does ChatGPT Say?

While the community is highly bullish now for PEPE, perhaps driven by the hype from the latest ATH, we decided to ask the popular AI chatbot about its opinion on the matter. It admitted that PEPE has “demonstrated significant growth potential in 2024,” adding that it has “frequently outperformed Shiba Inu (SHIB) in various timeframes.”

It noted that PEPE has attracted substantial whale activity and high trading volumes, but Shiba Inu’s ecosystem, including the Layer-2 network, “provides it with more tangible utility than PEPE, which primarily relies on community momentum and market hype.”

Consequently, ChatGPT concluded that such a flippening is ‘unlikely,’ at least in this timeframe.

“While analysts expect strong gains for PEPE, Shiba Inu’s entrenched position as a larger and more established meme coin makes a complete flip unlikely in the short term unless a significant shift occurs in their respective ecosystems.”

The post Can PEPE Surpass Shiba Inu by 2024’s End? ChatGPT Answers appeared first on CryptoPotato.