This is issue #77 of the on-chain analytics newsletter that reaches nearly 12k crypto investors every week 📈

This week our contributor analysts cover NFT projects: NFTfi, Foundation, and Rarible.

• NFTfi is the first, and at present only, functioning loan market enabling secure P2P lending/borrowing against NFTs as collateral. The worldwide paradigm change accepting virtual goods in general, and NFTs specifically, as legitimate high-value assets has led to an influx in demand to leverage them financially. Over the past 90 days, total borrowed volume increased 250% and repayment rates versus defaults increased 377%, demonstrating a healthy and increasingly educated ecosystem.

• The majority of the volume on NFTfi comes from top-end collectables (CryptoKitties, CryptoPunks, Hashmasks), Generative art (Autoglyphs, Artblocks), high-end art (Async Art, Known Origin) and metaverse land (Decentraland, Cryptovoxels). Volume stats below:

• The largest NFT backed loan to date, on any platform, was done via NFTfi on May 14, 2021. The loan was for $200,069 and used a 1 of 1 Hackatao, All-seeing CKthulhu minted on Async Art as collateral.

• Foundation is building the new creative economy - one where creators anywhere in the world can be rewarded for the value they create and where collectors can participate in the growth of any creator’s trajectory. Since our launch in February, we have generated more than 22,000 ETH ($44mm+) in sales. Also, several notable creators earned significant amounts within the past 30 days: Holly Herndon (53 ETH), Harambe (30 ETH), as well as the first university to sell an NFT, UC Berkeley (22 ETH).

• Collectors are benefiting significantly from secondary sales, with average price appreciation currently greater than 460%. Secondaries continue to serve as an important way for creators to earn royalties as well as for collectors to capture gains from their collections.

• Twenty-two collectors have spent greater than 100 ETH and five have collected greater than 100 NFTs since launch. As collectors continue spending significant amounts of ETH supporting creators, the network will continue to attract established as well as promising new creators.

• Rarible announced a $14.2M raise led by Venrock, CoinFund, and 01 Advisors, alongside a FLOW Partnership. Going forward, Rarible has a lot in the pipeline for the upcoming few months, including the launch of Rarible NFT protocol, L2 solution for scalability and sustainability, credit card payments, adoption of Flow blockchain, multiple partnerships and drops, and more.

• Although monthly mints in May on Rarible were lower than the activity level seen during peak NFT enthusiasm in March, both May and June month-to-date data remains substantially higher than average levels seen in the 4th quarter of 2020, suggesting underlying growth in NFT marketplaces over time.

• Rarible stands by its vision to become a full-scale protocol powered by a DAO. Monthly users of the Rarible protocol appear to have stabilized as the May user count exceeded that of February, while June-to-date figures are promising and have the potential to show a month-on-month increase versus May.