Immutable X has confirmed that trading volume for its NFTs on Rarible has now surpassed the $5 million mark. The milestone comes barely a week after Rarible integrated with Immutable X to give gamers a low-cost and fast way to trade gaming NFTs.
Additionally, Rarible is already running a limited-time promotion that allows users to trade Immutable NFTs at no fees. The promo will run until September 27th.
In our first week of launch with @rarible we've reached over $5,000,000 volume traded!
This is just the beginning #onIMX pic.twitter.com/sPnMCUNveM
— Immutable đź…§ – $IMX (@Immutable) September 23, 2022
The Immutable and Rarible Integration
The partnership between Immutable X and Rarible was announced on September 14th. The deal allows Rarible, one of the leading NFT marketplaces in the world, to integrate with the Immutable X blockchain, a layer-2 scaling solution designed for Ethereum-based NFTs.
The integration targets gamers who want to avoid the high gas fees and long transaction times associated with Ethereum NFT trades. Rarible and Immutable also announced a series of incentives for blockchain gamers who want to explore this integration.
ICYMI – @Rarible is now #onIMX 🎉#RariGang can now access world-class gaming content with zero gas fees on @Immutable
Thanks to the Partner Spotlight, you can earn double the Trading Rewards (up to 100,000 $IMX daily) when you shop at https://t.co/3uiflA8e31 🏆 https://t.co/59DZYhPJP3
— Immutable đź…§ – $IMX (@Immutable) September 13, 2022
For starters, all Immutable NFT transactions on Rarible would come with zero fees for a limited time. Additionally, the two platforms confirmed they’d double IMX rewards for folks who trade these NFTs on Rarible.
Immutable X has been running a trading reward program since June. The program rewards users with IMX tokens every time they buy or sell NFTs on Immutable.
For a limited time, these rewards will now be doubled for users who buy and trade immutable NFTs on Rarible. Nonetheless, with $5 million in trading volume in less than a week, it is now clear that this integration is off to a great start.
Why Immutable X is Dominating P2E NFTs
The integration of NFTs into blockchain gaming is designed to offer true ownership to players around the world. However, since most P2E games were initially built on Ethereum, they faced a very big problem.
The network congestion on Ethereum meant that gas fees were high when transacting NFTs. Also, the amount of time it took to complete a transition was just too much. Imagine paying well over $40 in gas fees for an NFT trade that takes so much time to complete.
Immutable felt that this problem needed to be solved, and as such, it launched a layer 2 scaling solution that would be solely dedicated to Ethereum gaming NFTs. Immutable became the first chain to offer zero gas fees on NFT trades and incredible transaction speeds.
This eventually transformed the platform into one of the world’s most dominant gaming NFT platforms. Immutable is also playing a key role in transforming web3 gaming. You can read our detailed post here on why we think Immutable X is the future of web3.
NFTs Sales On Immutable Improving
The negative sentiment around NFTs in 2022 has hit Immutable X hard. According to data on CryptoSlam, NFT sales have dropped sharply over the past nine months.
In January 2022, total NFT sales on Immutable reached $53 million. This was the highest monthly sales volume recorded in the platform’s history. But things didn’t really pick up from there.
Data shows that monthly sales for September are now at $9.7 million. This is almost five times less compared to the figures reported in January. But despite this, sales are actually improving in a way.
For instance, when we did this analysis for July, NFTs sales on Immutable had dropped to around $5.6 million. This was the lowest sales data recorded so far in 2022. But we are seeing some improvements. In August, for instance, sales for the month almost doubled compared to the previous four weeks.
Immutable is also on course to record positive growth in NFT sales this September. This will be the first time in 2022 that monthly NFT sales have improved for three months.
It is probably a sign that perhaps the NFT market is starting to stabilize after a major bear season in the last few months.
Can Immutable Dethrone Ethereum in NFT Sales?
Immutable has done quite well to solve the problems associated with Ethereum’s NFT landscape. But despite this, Ethereum still dominates the NFT market in fact, Immutable is nowhere near the kind of volume reported by Ethereum in recent years.
For instance, lifetime NFT sales on Ethereum are almost hitting $30 billion. On the other hand, lifetime NFT sales are at $250 million on Immutable. This is more than ten times less.
Besides, Immutable still lags behind other platforms like Ronin, Solana, and Flow in terms of lifetime NFT sales. It is, in fact, ranked 8th, which is not bad, to be fair. With this data, it is highly unlikely the platform will dethrone Ethereum anytime soon.
Why Ethereum Will Dominate NFTs in The Future
It’s hard to see any NFT platform taking Ethereum’s crown in the near future. After all, lifetime NFT sales on Ethereum are higher than the next ten chains combined. Even Ronin, the Axie Infinity blockchain that sits second on the list with $4 billion in sales, is still way behind Ethereum.
Also, Ethereum completed the widely anticipated Merge earlier this month. The Merge transitions the chain from a Proof-of-work consensus to a Proof-of-Stake. This will significantly reduce gas fees and transaction time.
Ultimately, The Merge will make Ethereum much more competitive in the NFT market, translating into dominance in the near and long term. Nonetheless, Immutable has established a niche as the go-to NFT platform for gamers.
The platform continues to attract a big share of in-game NFTs, and blockchain gaming will be its biggest growth driver in the coming months.
