NFT market booms while crypto market remains sluggish. Here’s why
Hello! Welcome back to Distributed Ledger, our weekly crypto newsletter that reaches your inbox every Thursday. I’m Frances Yue, crypto reporter at MarketWatch, and I’ll walk you through the latest and greatest in digital assets this week so far. Find me on Twitter at @FrancesYue_ to send feedback or tell us what you think we should cover.
Crypto in a snap
Bitcoin
BTCUSD
recorded a 3.3% loss over the seven-session stretch, recently trading at around $43,044. Ether
ETHUSD
traded 6.1% lower from seven days ago at around $3,229. Meme token Dogecoin
DOGEUSD
is down 3% over the past seven sessions, trading at around $0.17, while another dog-themed token Shiba Inu
SHIBUSD
logged a 7.7% loss over the past seven days, trading at around $0.000028.
Crypto Metrics
| Biggest Gainers | Price | % 7-day return |
| Secret | $8.85 | 32.9% |
| Ecomi | $0.0079 | 21.4% |
| FTX Token | $49.48 | 19.3% |
| Osmosis | $10.49 | 13.2% |
| Theta Fuel | $0.2 | 11.7% |
| | | Source: CoinGecko as of Jan.20 |
| Biggest Decliners | Price | % 7-day return |
| Loopring | $1.21 | -26% |
| Kadena | $8.07 | -20.5% |
| Internet Computer | $28.04 | -19.5% |
| Gala | $0.29 | -19% |
| THORChain | $5.8 | -16.6% |
| | | Source: CoinGecko as of Jan.20 |
NFT’s outperformance
Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, which refer to non-interchangeable digital assets stored on a blockchain, are seeing the boom continue, while the overall crypto market has been sluggish over the past few weeks. Major cryptocurrencies have seen losses over the past seven days, though most traded up Thursday.
The largest NFT marketplace OpenSea, which usually takes up more than 90% of the total NFT trading volume, saw its transaction volume on the Ethereum blockchain surpassing $4 billion so far in January, on pace to record its highest monthly volume in history, according to data from Dune Analytics.
“I think just in general, NFT is kind of uncorrelated with the greater digital asset space,” Eric Chen, co-founder of Injective, a decentralized exchange protocol, told Distributed Ledger in an interview.
Major cryptocurrencies, especially bitcoin, have been lately trading in tandem with stocks facing macroeconomic uncertainties, while NFTs are attracting growing mainstream attention, as companies and celebrities roll out their…
Read More: NFT market booms while crypto market remains sluggish. Here’s why