Web3 Deep Dive: NFTs, DeFi, and Cryptocurrency Explained podcast.
Hey frens, Crypto Willy here, sliding into your earbuds with a Web3 deep dive on what’s been popping this past week across NFTs, DeFi, and crypto.
Let’s start with **NFTs**, because the “are NFTs dead?” meme got a plot twist. PANews reporter Nancy points out that in the very first week of 2026, NFT market cap quietly jumped by over $220 million, with hundreds of collections showing double‑ and even triple‑digit rebounds. That’s happening in a market that, as The Block’s 2025 report shows, shrank from about $9 billion to roughly $2.4 billion in a year and lost 37% of its volume. So yeah, price action looks alive, but structurally this is a zombie market.
That broader collapse is exactly what the team at JU Market Insights highlighted when they covered the cancellation of **NFT Paris**. They trace the crash from a $17 billion peak market cap in 2021 down to about $2.4 billion by the end of 2025, with trading volume off nearly 80%. Blue chips like **CryptoPunks**, **Bored Ape Yacht Club**, and **Pudgy Penguins** all took heavy hits. Their take is sharp: this isn’t just a dip, it’s demand destruction, and it forced giants like **OpenSea** to pivot into a “trade everything” model where most volume is now fungible tokens, not JPEGs.
Zooming in on weekly sales, CryptoSlam data reported by Crypto.news shows NFT sales sliding almost 28% week over week to around $62 million, even while **Bitcoin** hangs near the $90,000 level and total crypto market cap stays above $3 trillion. Ethereum still leads NFT chains by sales, but **Bitcoin NFTs** – those BRC‑20 and Ordinals‑style assets – saw volumes crater over 65%. Collections like **CryptoPunks** and **YES BOND** on BNB are still printing a few million in weekly sales, and **Panini America**’s digital trading cards did a huge spike, but the number of active buyers and sellers fell off a cliff. Translation: a few whales are dancing in an almost empty club.
Now, where does **DeFi** fit into this? Platforms and chains that used to pitch themselves as “NFT-first” are quietly chasing DeFi yield. PANews notes **Flow** leaning into DeFi, while NFT infra projects like **Zora** are reframing around “content as tokens” with more utility and economics baked in. This week you’re seeing more chatter about NFT‑DeFi mashups: collateralizing NFTs, tokenizing real‑world assets like **Pokémon cards** via platforms such as **Collector Crypt** and **Courtyard**, and plugging those into lending markets. That’s the bigger theme: NFTs are evolving from pure collectibles into DeFi‑compatible primitives.
On the broader **crypto** side, the vibe is almost the opposite of NFTs: prices relatively strong, infrastructure maturing, and capital rotating rather than exiting. Bitcoin near all‑time highs plus a $3‑trillion‑plus market cap tells you people still want crypto exposure; they just prefer liquid tokens over illiquid art right now. That’s why OpenSea’s “trade anything” play and the rise of multi‑chain DEXs make sense: the market wants fungibility, composability, and yield.
If you zoom out, players like Simplilearn and Bankless are both calling the same direction for 2026: NFTs tied to **gaming**, **DeFi**, **AI‑driven curation**, and **real‑world assets** have a future; purely speculative profile pictures do not. The speculative phase is getting wiped, but the tech stack – ERC‑721s, ERC‑1155s, tokenized IP, on‑chain identity – is quietly plugging deeper into DeFi rails and game economies.
Alright fam, that’s your Web3 wrap for the week. Thanks for tuning in, hanging out with me, Crypto Willy. Come back next week for more alpha on NFTs, DeFi, and everything crypto. This has been a Quiet Please production – and if you want more from me, check out QuietPlease dot A I.
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Jan 17 20263 Min.