Speculators Hijack NFT Narratives
Duncan Cock Foster, co-founder of Nifty Gateway, on NFTs as luxury goods
The core pattern is that crypto repeatedly turns product experiments into trading games. NFTs started with artists selling scarce digital works and communities testing access models, but once fast price appreciation became visible, buyers shifted from using the asset to flipping it. That change favored broad marketplaces built for volume, hurt models like one time membership passes that needed ongoing participation, and drowned out slower art and utility use cases with speculation.
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The membership token example shows why speculation took over so easily. A creator business usually needs subscribers paying every month. An NFT pass is usually bought once, then resold. That makes the product behave more like a collectible than software or media revenue.
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Marketplace winners changed with buyer psychology. Generalist platforms like OpenSea were built to index every NFT narrative, from profile pictures to access passes. Curated venues like Nifty Gateway and Art Blocks worked better when buyers acted more like art collectors and less like day traders.
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The unwind was severe once speculative demand left. OpenSea weekly volume fell from about $1.4B in 2022 to under $20M by 2025, Coinbase sunset its standalone NFT marketplace starting July 10, 2024, and Kraken put its NFT marketplace into withdrawal only mode on November 27, 2024.
Going forward, the NFT categories that keep growing are the ones that still make sense after the trading frenzy fades. That points to high end digital art, branded collectibles, and luxury objects where provenance, curation, and status matter on their own. The market is likely to become smaller, more curated, and more like art than crypto.