Key takeaways
Volumes
~10% of peak
The liquidity event is over
Survivors
3 types
Brands, utility assets, onchain art
Infrastructure
Improved
Cheap L2 minting, aggregation
It is fashionable to declare NFTs dead, and by 2021 standards they are. But the 2021 standard was a liquidity event, not a market. What remains after the washout is smaller, stranger and considerably more durable.
What actually survived
Three categories made it through: collections that became genuine brands with revenue beyond royalties; utility assets — game items, domains, tickets, memberships — where the NFT is plumbing rather than the product; and onchain art with real collector bases. Everything else round-tripped to zero, as speculative excess always does.
The infrastructure kept improving
While prices fell, the rails got better: enforceable royalties where creators opt in, cheap L2 minting, and marketplace aggregation that made liquidity legible. The next demand wave — whenever it arrives — inherits infrastructure the last one had to improvise.
The lesson generalizes across crypto: the technology compounds through the drawdowns. Price cycles are loud; progress is quiet.
