The ruthless bearish phase in the crypto and NFT markets seems to have been unable to deter brands and companies around the world from foraying into the world of NFT, as more than 6,000 trademark applications for NFT and related blockchain items have been filed in the year so far.
The global cryptocurrency market is still evolving in cycles, alternating between periods of high activity and ‘crypto winter’. The past ‘crypto winter’ phases have been in 2011, 2013 and in 2017.The current so-called ‘crypto winter’ has dealt a big blow to the overall crypto market and affected different parts of the industry such as Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Web 3.0 gaming and even NFT.
However, latest data from the United States Patent and Trademark office indicated that 6,366 trademark applications for NFT and related blockchain products have already been filed so far this year.The figure marks an almost 200 per cent increase from the number of trademark applications filed in 2021, which was 2,142, roughly a third of this year’s figure.
The month of March saw the highest number of trademark applications filed at 1,080 while the month of September recorded the least number of trademark applications filed so far this year at 435 applications.
In this context, it is important to note that the monthly application volumes have gone down consistently since March 2022. The revelation comes at a critical time when the overall NFT market has been besieged by fear, uncertainty and doubts (FUD) amid concerns about the valuations of some of the popular NFT collections.
However, the silver lining amidst the dark clouds hovering over the broader crypto market is that the interest in NFT has not only sustained the bear market but also managed to overtake previous year’s number. This should come as a relief to NFT artists and investors alike.
Moreover, some of the world’s biggest brands have also ventured into the NFT space during the period. NFT have made inroads in the music industry with popular names like Sony Music filing trademark applications for NFT. Automobile giant Ford Motor Company has also ventured into the NFT space by filing 19 trademark applications for all its major brands.
The trademark filings related to ‘digital or cryptocurrency or related goods and services’ have also overtaken the numbers of last year, as 4,317 trademark applications were filed in 2022, as compared to 3,547 trademark applications filed in 2021.
The third quarter of 2022 was quite brutal for the NFT markets when NFT trading volume plummeted by as much as 84 per cent from the previous quarter to US $713 million. According to DappRadar, NFT based on the Solana blockchain network fared better comparatively in the month of September, managing to reach monthly sales of US $133 million, as compared to the US $68.5 million from the month before.
The Ethereum Name Service, interestingly, is now leading the top collections on DappRadar in terms of volume, the number of traders as well as sales. Its 30-day volume is up by 70 per cent and reached US $31.2 million. Moreover, its sales have been 556,575, which is almost 50 per cent higher as compared to that of last month.
Meanwhile, the so-called ‘crypto winter’ has proved to be quite brutal for popular NFT marketplace OpenSea, as trading volume on the platform has plunged by more than 90 per cent from its high in March. In addition, sales on the NFT trading platform have dropped consistently for five months in a row.
