The Fall of the $70 Million Myth: How NFTs Went from Auctions to Walmart Shelves

Author: Sanqing, Foresight News

Original Title: From the $70 Million Myth to $9 Figurines, Has NFT Really “Cool” Off?

On January 5th, the NFT Paris Developer Conference, originally scheduled for February, suddenly announced its cancellation. Once a night-long party by the Seine, now only a cold official announcement tweet: “The market crash has dealt a huge blow to us. Even with aggressive cost-cutting measures, we still cannot sustain.”

Five years ago, digital artist Beeple’s work “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” sold at Christie’s auction house for a staggering $69.3 million. Subsequently, from CryptoPunks with multi-million dollar sales to countless digital collectibles endorsed by mainstream institutions, that was the golden age of NFTs.

From a record-breaking auction price to a canceled industry conference, NFTs have completed a full cycle from frenzy to liquidation in five years.

Image – Everydays: The First 5000 Days NFT

NFT Market Supply and Demand Imbalance

Supply explosion. According to CryptoSlam data, the supply in 2025 increased by 35% compared to 2024’s 1 billion units. Over the past four years, the total NFT supply soared from 38 million to 1.34 billion, a growth of approximately 3,400%.

Sales contraction. CryptoSlam data shows that total NFT sales in 2025 were about $5.63 billion, down 37% from $8.9 billion in 2024. According to CoinGecko data, the total market cap of NFTs peaked at around $17 billion in April 2022 and fell to about $2.4 billion by the end of 2025, a decline of approximately 86%. In just 2025, the total market cap shrank from about $9.2 billion in January to its end-of-year scale, a 68% decrease year-over-year.

Liquidity dilution. As minting thresholds lowered, the market entered a “high-frequency, low-price” mode. CryptoSlam data shows that the average transaction price dropped from $124 in 2024 to $96 at the end of 2025. Compared to the over $400 average during the bubble peak of 2021-2022, it has fallen by three-quarters.

Image source: CryptoSlam

Even top-tier NFT projects and blue-chip NFTs are not immune. Take CryptoPunks, for example, the floor price has fallen to about 30 ETH, down 78% from its peak of 125 ETH in 2021; Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) dropped 83% from about 30 ETH to around 5 ETH; Azuki fell 93% from about 12 ETH to 0.8 ETH.

Collective “Escape” and Evolution of Platforms

Industry leaders’ moves mark the end of this cycle.

Once the dominant player in the NFT market, OpenSea’s platform revenue has dropped from $50 million to $120 million per month during the NFT boom to less than one million dollars.

Therefore, OpenSea announced a transformation, shifting from a simple “NFT marketplace” to a “Trade Everything” on-chain trading hub, covering physical collectibles and tokens, and confirmed plans to issue tokens.

Blur, which debuted at its peak, has seen its TVL hit new lows, and its token price has fallen 99% from its high.

Similarly, Magic Eden on Solana, after a year of operation and token issuance, has seen trading volume shrink due to market downturns and short-term bearish expectations, with its token price dropping over 98% from its peak.

Even projects that can’t keep up with the times, like the veteran NFT marketplace X2Y2, have been eliminated, shut down entirely, with the team shifting focus to AI.

From “Tokens” to “Brands”

Amidst the bleak landscape, Pudgy Penguins successfully defied the trend and became an industry anomaly. Its success was not based on complex token innovations or short-term speculation, but on transforming digital IP into physical consumer products, gradually building a sustainable brand ecosystem bridging Web3 and traditional retail.

Through CEO Luca Netz’s dual-income model, Pudgy Penguins deeply integrates IP licensing with physical goods. Its toys are now available in over 10,000 retail outlets worldwide, including Walmart, Target, and Walgreens. According to AInvest, this transformation has generated approximately $50 million annually, effectively offsetting the overall shrinkage of the crypto market.

Image – Pudgy Penguins toys shelf at Walmart in the US

During Christmas 2025, Pudgy Penguins invested about $500,000 to project giant animations on the Sphere, a landmark in Las Vegas.

Image – Pudgy Penguins character on the Sphere

This advertising campaign, targeting millions of tourists, avoided crypto jargon and NFT terms, instead presenting family-friendly IP images. It used brand exposure to indirectly stimulate liquidity in the secondary market. Over the past 14 days, the NFT floor price increased by 25%, and trading volume rose by about 33%.

This shift from speculation to cultural operation seems to be becoming a consensus among industry survivors. Last May, Yuga Labs, the publisher of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), transferred the IP rights of top NFT project CryptoPunks to the nonprofit Infinite Node Foundation, aiming to detach it from volatile price speculation and pursue long-term artistic preservation and cultural operation.

Physical Endorsement and Functional Return

In addition to IP branding, NFTs are becoming foundational tools for connecting physical assets (RWA).

Physical card trading. The platform Courtyard.io is changing the game. They store authentic Pokémon cards in certified vaults and tokenize them as NFTs. Within 30 days of late 2025, the platform processed over 230,000 transactions, generating about $12.7 million in sales, demonstrating strong market demand for high-liquidity, physically-backed assets.

Functional tickets. FIFA (the International Federation of Association Football) has also joined this camp, introducing “priority purchase” NFTs for the 2026 World Cup ticket sales. These NFTs are not for hype but serve as verification tools to prevent scalping and price fraud in the secondary market.

What Has NFT Died, and What Remains?

NFT has not “completely cooled off,” but it has indeed died once.

What died was the illusion that NFTs could be detached from real value, endlessly minted and traded based solely on narratives. In the face of infinite supply and limited demand, this path was doomed to be unsustainable.

What remains is NFTs as a “proof layer.” They are no longer required to generate value independently but are embedded within IP brands, physical assets, and functional scenarios, serving as the foundation for rights confirmation, circulation, participation, and verification.

From Pudgy Penguins’ toy shelves, to on-chain circulation of physical cards, to anti-scalping mechanisms for World Cup tickets, NFTs are stepping back from the speculative stage and returning to a toolbox.

For the NFT speculative market, this is undoubtedly a winter. But for NFTs themselves, it is more like a rebirth after disillusionment.