NFT (non-fungible token) sales have plunged to an all-new low in June following a crash in the cryptocurrency market. According to a new report, NFT sales reached just over $1 billion in June – a steep decline from the peak of $12.6 billion recorded in January.

As reported by crypto research firm Chainalysis (via The Guardian),  June’s drop in NFT sales marks the lowest since June 2021, which came in at $648 million. “This decline is definitely linked to the broader slowdown in crypto markets,” said Ethan McMahon, an economist at Chainalysis.

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“Times like this inevitably lead to consolidation within the affected markets, and for NFTs we will likely see a pullback in terms of the collections and types of NFTs that reach prominence,” McMahon added.

For those unaware, NFTs are essentially digital receipts that buyers can claim ownership of, usually taking the form of virtual art. Ownership is then recorded on a digital, decentralised ledger known as a blockchain.

Despite NFTs reaching peaks in sales and interest earlier this year, the steep decline in non-fungible token sales is unsurprising. NFTs were proposed by several video game companies over the last year, including Square Enix who still remain committed to pushing the technology forward. The company sold off several of its Western studios like Eidos Montreal and Crystal Dynamics in order to partially fund blockchain investments.

This upset a good majority of the gaming community who were outspoken about NFTs having no place in video games – a sentiment that would later be shared by gaming developers themselves. Ubisoft were among the first to implement NFTs into its game Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, which didn’t fare well with gamers as interest drastically dwindled over the last few months.

In other bizarre related news, Web 3 company Polium revealed the first-ever NFT games console, the Polium One, which is capable of running games built on different blockchains.

Source: The Guardian