Just saw an interesting take from Animoca Brands' co-founder on why people keep saying NFTs are dead. Spoiler: they're really not, if you know where to look.

Yat Siu was speaking at a crypto conference and made a solid point. Yeah, monthly NFT sales are down from that insane $1 billion peak back in 2021/22. We're sitting closer to $300 million these days. But here's the thing - that's still a massive market, especially when you remember this was literally a zero dollar space five years ago.

The real story isn't that NFTs died. It's that the market shifted. The hype crowd moved on, sure. But wealthy collectors? They never left. Siu said it best - these aren't people flipping tokens for quick gains. They're building long-term collections the same way someone collects Picassos or Ferraris. It's a club mentality. You're part of a community of people who get digital art and digital assets.

Siu mentioned his own portfolio is down roughly 80%, but he's not worried. These are holds, not trades. And he's seeing other major collectors actively buying - stuff like Otherdeed lands in Otherside and Bored Ape NFTs. The wealth is still flowing into the space, just more selectively.

One thing that's been dragging on the sector though is the whole NFT Paris situation. The event got canceled, and Siu pointed out it's not really about NFTs being dead. It's more about Europe and France specifically turning cold on crypto. He mentioned security concerns too - there's been a wave of kidnapping attempts targeting crypto executives and investors in France over the past year, which obviously makes people hesitant to show up to major events there.

So is NFT dead? Not even close. It's just matured. The speculation bubble burst, but the actual use case - digital collectibles for serious collectors - is alive and well. The data's all on the blockchain if you want to verify it yourself.