The NFT sector may be on the brink of a comeback after many months of low activity. More users are interacting with OpenSea, the leading NFT marketplace. 

According to data analyzed by the crypto research platform Dune, OpenSea recorded its highest monthly users in two years last month. The marketplace had 467,322 active users in May, its highest number since April 2023, when the total was 506,730. Notably, OpenSea recorded significant monthly active users between mid-2022 and early 2023 before the NFT market took a turn for the worse.

Daily active users on the NFT marketplace reached an average of 56,400 in late May, with the highest daily count exceeding 111,720 on May 30. Dune shows that 87,601 users counted on May 30 were new, while 24,123 were returning users. 

Despite the relatively high number of monthly users, OpenSea’s fees and trading volume for May were low. The platform had a monthly volume of $81.3 million, while fees totaled approximately $1.77 million. The monthly volume is a far cry from the figures recorded in early 2022 – $5 billion and $3.5 billion in January and April, respectively.

On the brighter side, the number of NFTs sold throughout May surpassed 2.11 million, falling slightly below the 2.2 million recorded in April. These levels were last seen in February 2023 but still pale in comparison to January 2022, when 5.2 million NFTs were sold.

The market is barely two weeks into June, and OpenSea has already recorded interaction from 277,931 users. Daily active users peaked at 119,680 on June 11, with $33.5 million in monthly volume. If this trend continues, June could surpass May in active users, and even better, the NFT sector could witness a rebound in activity.

Interestingly, the growth in OpenSea user activity comes alongside the launch of an upgraded platform, OS2, which aims to unlock new experiences for users. OpenSea took OS2 out of its beta phase last month and announced its launch on May 29. Users have gained access to token trading across 19 chains, as well as a new quest-based rewards system named Voyages.

With OS2, users can swap and mint tokens across multiple chains, including Solana, within a single wallet interface. The platform unifies and streamlines fragmented digital asset experiences.

The crypto market has struggled for eight weeks, causing retail investors to leave the industry or their assets until general sentiments improve. While most assets are in the red, the on-chain intelligence platform Santiment has found signs that some alternative cryptocurrencies are rebounding.

According to a report from the firm, altcoins with large capitalizations like Ripple (XRP), Binance Coin (BNB), Tron (TRON), and Stellar (XLM) have been quietly gaining momentum and even price dominance on bitcoin (BTC).

Altcoins Rebound Amid the Dip

Examining the on-chain activities of crypto projects, Santiment discovered that some are seeing surges in their network utility, active address count, whale activity, exchange inflows/outflows, and social sentiment. This can also be seen in Santiment’s Activity Matrix, which provides data for 114 of crypto’s most well-known assets in eight categories over a three-month range.

Santiment said the Activity Matrix indicates some projects have the potential to turn their fates around in the near future. The firm noted that most assets would see their lowest network activity in a year because retail traders could be waiting for market sentiment to improve before returning to their positions. Some assets witnessing this include Pepe (PEPE), Chainlink (LINK), and Shiba Inu (SHIB).

“Well, unfortunately, the price trend is more likely to continue for these projects than others. Ideally, during a market-wide price downturn, we see sudden pick-ups in whale transactions (indicating accumulation from them) or network growth (indicating upcoming on-chain transaction increases),” Santiment explained.

Positive Network Metrics

Santiment’s analysis found top candidates for each category in the Activity Matrix, including Dogecoin (DOGE), Pax Gold (PAXG), Magic Token (MAGIC), Audius (AUDIO), Uma (UMA), Joe (JOE), and Threshold (T).

DOGE is experiencing the highest rise in address activity. This means there is a rising amount of unique addresses interacting on the coin’s network, with an increasing number of individuals on the sending or receiving side of transactions.

For the highest network growth, Santiment highlighted PAXG as the top candidate, indicating that the network has more opportunities for rising utility in the future. Magic Token is seeing the highest number of transactions surpassing $100,000 in value. This shows that major stakeholders are taking an increasing interest in MAGIC.

Furthermore, Audius is seeing the highest rise in positive sentiment across crypto communities, while Uma is dominating discussions on social media platforms. PAXG emerged as another top candidate for exchange outflows, while Joe and Threshold are the top Mean Dollar Invested Age and Age Consumed risers, respectively.