According to statistics, the number of non-fungible token (NFT) sales in March was 31.42% lower than the previous month, dropping from $1.03 billion in sales for February to $882.89 million. The number of NFT buyers and transactions also declined, by 22% to 29%, over the last 30 days.

March NFT Sales Slow, Ethereum Sales Dominate by Over 60%

In March, sales of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) dropped by 31% compared to the previous month, as the number of buyers and transactions declined. Data shows that in February, NFT sales reached $1.03 billion, but statistics for the last day of March indicate that sales over the last 30 days amounted to $882.89 million. Of these sales, $537.89 million were settled on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain, which dominated March sales with more than 60%. Solana-based NFT sales accounted for 10.57% of March sales, with $93.36 million recorded.

In terms of NFT sales, Solana was followed by Polygon ($36.16 million), Immutable X ($28.82 million), and Cardano ($10.08 million). The top-selling NFT collection in March was Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), which generated $35.81 million in sales, although this figure represented a 48.19% decline from the previous month. Cryptopunks was the second largest NFT collection in terms of sales, with $30.11 million, an increase of 87.95% compared to February.

According to statistics from cryptoslam.io, the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Cryptopunks NFT collections were followed by Otherdeed ($29.20 million), MG Land ($25.71 million), and HV-MTL ($18.59 million). Among the top ten NFT collections, Degods saw a 70.53% increase in sales in March compared to February, just below the 87.95% increase that Cryptopunks experienced over the same period. Other notable collections that saw increases in sales this month include Y00ts, Claynosaurz, and Whiko NFT.

The most expensive NFT sales this month were Azimuth Points #236, which sold for $704,000, followed by Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) #5,116, which sold for $689,000, and Fidenza #971, which sold for $561,000. BAYC #2,062 sold for $557,000 five days ago, while Fidenza #395 sold for $547,000 just over a month ago. According to 30-day statistics, no NFTs sold for over a million dollars in March. According to Dappradar.com and Dune Analytics, Blur dominated sales with over 70%, while Opensea captured 19.9%.

What do you think caused the decline in NFT sales and transactions in March, and do you believe this is a temporary setback or a sign of a larger trend? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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Millions of U.S. dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency has been sent to centralized exchanges (CEXs), most notably Binance, from wallets providing funds in support of Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, transaction data suggests. According to Ukrainian analysts, the money was transferred to the crypto trading platforms in order to be laundered.

Over 90% of Pro-Russian Crypto Transfers Identified in a Study Sent to Largest Exchange

More than $40 million was sent last year from wallets that were used to sponsor the Russian invasion of Ukraine to cryptocurrency exchanges, according to an analysis of such transactions conducted by Hapi Labs. The main purpose of these transfers was to launder the money, the Ukrainian startup claims in a post on Twitter published Tuesday.

While various amounts went to a number of crypto platforms, nearly 96% of the digital cash reached Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Researchers at the company, which provides blockchain tracking tools and data analysis software, believe this is an indication of failures in the anti-money laundering (AML) procedures.

At the same time, amounts transferred in the opposite direction — from exchanges to wallets used to support the Russian war on Ukraine — are much more modest, the decentralized security protocol developers pointed out.

“Binance is still among the leaders, but as we can see, it is not the only one. Say hello to the bankrupt @FTX_Official and others!” they remarked in another tweet. Two other major centralized exchanges, Kucoin and the European, Ukraine-rooted Whitebit, are also in the top five, along with the decentralized aggregator 1inch.

Hapi Labs tracked donations for weapons and ammunition intended for the Russian army and various private military companies, including groups associated with the two Russia-backed self-proclaimed republics in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Mark Letsyuk, the company’s head of analytics and research, told the crypto news outlet Forklog.

Often, exchanges don’t block wallets involved in the financing of the Russian military aggression for more than six months, despite requests by law enforcement authorities, the Ukrainian blockchain forensics experts pointed out.

“Centralized exchanges should block such wallets as soon as possible after notification. But most often they are either not blocked at all, or they are blocked very late, when dirty funds have already passed through them and the account is empty,” Letsyuk added, commenting on the findings.

He also noted that Whitebit is the most quick to respond to alerts from law enforcement agencies and cybersecurity companies while cooperating with Hapi Labs and Ukrainian special services to track and block transactions linked to the Russian campaign.

Binance Blames Unregulated and Sanctioned Exchanges

Representatives of Binance referred to a recent article by Chagri Poyraz, head of its global sanctions team, who highlights that the platform uses analytical tools from Elliptic, Chainalysis, and TRM Labs to monitor transactions. He also explains that it’s not very simple to block incoming transactions which can be investigated only after they are made.

These funds can be tracked, but it is very difficult to freeze or block, he elaborated. Poyraz also emphasized that unregulated or sanctioned exchanges do not perform know-your-customer (KYC) checks or comply with existing AML rules. And most of them are based in Russia while some are operating from China or India.

Binance also reminded that during the first eight months of the conflict in Ukraine, more than $4 million in cryptocurrency was raised in support of pro-Russian organizations, most of which are already placed under sanctions. According to a report by Elliptic released in February 2023, such entities have raised around $4.8 million for the Russian military and associated militias.

The two quoted figures are much smaller than the one produced by Hapi Labs, which may indicate that not all of the funds that passed through the wallets the company studied represent war-related donations. Both sides in the conflict have been raising crypto and according to Elliptic, over $212 million has been sent to Ukraine.

Do you think crypto exchanges have the means to restrict transactions related to funding the war in Ukraine? Share your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below.

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Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

Unlike AI applications such as Chatgpt, cryptocurrencies do not bring “anything useful,” a top executive of U.S. chip maker Nvidia is convinced. The comment comes despite his company making significant sales in the space where its powerful processors are widely used to mint digital coins.

Developing Chatbots More Worthwhile Than Crypto Mining, Nvidia Exec Claims

Cryptocurrencies do not “bring anything useful for society,” according to a high-ranking representative of Nvidia, the leading manufacturer of graphics processing units (GPUs). The executive expressed this opinion despite his company selling quantities of video cards to the industry.

Other uses of their processing power, such as those associated with artificial intelligence (AI) applications like the Chatgpt chatbot, are more worthwhile than mining crypto, Nvidia’s Chief Technology Officer Michael Kagan told the Guardian.

The U.S. tech firm, which is also a major supplier of AI hardware and software, hasn’t been too keen on the crypto market. Two years ago, it tried to restrict the ability to use its GPUs to mint ether (ETH), the second largest cryptocurrency, which was popular among miners at the time.

Kagan insisted that the decision, which was meant to ensure sufficient supply for Nvidia’s preferred customers — like gamers and AI researchers among others — was justified because of the limited value of using the potent processors to extract digital currencies.

“All this crypto stuff, it needed parallel processing, and [Nvidia] is the best, so people just programmed it to use for this purpose. They bought a lot of stuff, and then eventually it collapsed, because it doesn’t bring anything useful for society. AI does,” Kagan explained.

“With Chatgpt, everybody can now create his own machine, his own program: you just tell it what to do, and it will,” he elaborated. The chatbot’s first version was actually trained on a supercomputer made up of about 10,000 GPUs from Nvidia, the newspaper remarked.

Microsoft announced recently it had purchased tens of thousands of A100s, Nvidia’s AI-focused GPUs, for Openai, the developer of Chatgpt which the software giant funds. Nvidia also sold 20,000 units of its successor, the H100 chip, to Amazon for its cloud service, AWS, and another 16,000 to Oracle, the British daily detailed.

Nvidia rents access to the chips through its DGX cloud service as well, and is involved in other AI projects. During its annual conference last week, CEO Jensen Huang referred to the company as the engine behind “the iPhone moment of AI,” and predicted the Nvidia-powered “generative AI” would “reinvent nearly every industry.”

While they are competing for resources like those provided by Nvidia, cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence are likely to cross paths more and more often in the future. Last week, U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase announced it had tested Chatgpt as a tool for pre-listing risk assessment of tokens and said the results deserved further investigation.

What is your opinion about the statements of the Nvidia tech executive about cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence? Share your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Michael Vi / Shutterstock.com

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.