Two interesting slides from a16z’s 2025 state of crypto presentation. One is the fees generated by the major crypto networks. From 2021 to 2024, Ethereum dominated, but just in the past year, that dominance has dwindled dramatically with Hyperliquid, Solana, Tron eating a lot of their lunch. Second is that NFT monthly active buyers on Ethereum peaked in 2022 and now dominated by Base and a much more diverse playing field. I’m a little suspicious of this particular graph, so wonder what they are including in this NFT activity, but even so it is interesting and I have a theory about it. My theory is that NFT art (and specifically fine art) is dominantly on ETH L1 and will remain so for the near term. Given the decline in ETH dominance in activity and attention (BTC and ETH are still very dominant in total market cap), it would make sense that it would lead to a decline in NFT activity and attention, which we are seeing, especially in secondary sales. I’m not saying this is the cause of the low NFT art activity, but I have to imagine it has had an impact. Second theory, I believe we will need the degens (i.e. speculative trading) to kick the NFT art market into higher gear. I know many of us want less speculative buying but I think the flippers are why the recent Quine auction reached $15M (and the subsequent volatile floor price). I have a guess that if it were only “true art buyers” who participated in the Quine auction, it would have settled around 2.5ETH, which is the price of Sam’s Masquerade collection. When I was trying to find people to offer my spare masks to, it was hard to find good people who could afford it, but Sam’s strong network found them for him, which is a testament to the Luci community that Sam has built. Now that said I do think that the NFT art market is separate from art in our community. I actually think the art is doing quite well with the recent string of institutional recognition and the overall quality of what is getting attention. I see more signs of digital art becoming just art versus tucked away in a niche corner. I also have a suspicion that digital art is being seen as a potential new revenue source for the trad art market, almost as a new lifeline for what is a very tough market in the trad art world. Now back to needing the degens. I think tools like Gondi and NFTStrategy will be important in kicking starting the NFT art market. I personally don’t like to use leverage or mess with tokens, but I do understand and appreciate their role in our ecosystem. The top things in crypto right now are stablecoins (ie Tether), perp trading (ie Hyperliquid) and prediction markets (ie Polymarket), which relate to cash, leverage, and speculation respectively. It makes sense that NFTs will need similar infrastructure to the greater crypto market if NFTs are to ever hit a bull run again. Final theory. The most important thing for things like Gondi and NFTStrategy to succeed will be volume. I personally think nothing else will matter. I think price and rates will handle quality, so if you look at NFTStrategy specifically, my bet is curation will hurt them more than help them. The market will determine which strategies are good or bad and it will be quickly reflected in the price of each strategy. And the only way to figure this all out is by aggressively experimenting. There will be a lot of failures, but the few successes will lead the way.