A newsletter dedicated to NFT Paris and a small market review
February 13 – Day 1
It had been a while since I last attended a Web3/NFT conference. But this year, I was motivated to go back to NFT Paris to see what’s happening in the ecosystem and maybe hand out a few business cards.
I didn’t have high expectations, other than to gauge the vibe, explore the new format, and see who the current NFT audience is.
The event was held from February 13 to 14 at the Grande Halle de la Villette in Paris’s 19th arrondissement. Since I was working on the 13th, my NFT Paris experience truly began in the evening with the side-events.
Instead of going to the techno party at Cabaret Sauvage, I chose to visit FelixFelixFelix’s exhibition at Avant Galerie, where he was launching his Cypherpalace as part of his CypherDudes collection. An entire wall was covered with cypherpunk references, and several screens displayed his work.
It was an opportunity to meet the more traditional artistic figures of the French NFT ecosystem and discuss everyone’s progress. Topics included writing reports for the Ministry of Culture, ongoing work on a book combining NFT archeology and politics, speculation around HiFo Labs, and financial reviews to see who’s thriving. Behind the scenes, discussions were grounded in concrete topics—a mix of sweet hopes and bitter broken dreams.
In this group, people are now building out of passion. Not so much out of greed anymore.
February 14 – Day 2
This time, I was able to fully enjoy the second day. Strolling between booths, attending conferences, and having discussions… I was curious to discover the more public-facing side of the ecosystem.
Right at the entrance, a tall character wearing a top hat welcomed me to take a photo with AI-generated prints. The idea was to post the photo on social media to participate in a contest. While the concept was fun, being doxxed right at the entrance felt a bit weird.
I looked for an information point to find out about the day’s talks but found none. No flyers. So, I started wandering through the booths without any particular expectations.
Many were holding Rekt cans, the Ape and Ordinals ecosystems were very visible, Binance was giving out yellow roses (for Valentine’s Day? Hmm.), and Sandbox had an arcade machine to try out their game. This year, no Web2 brands were present.
I met people from the 2018-2019 generation who were also looking for less Web2 use cases. Journalists were wondering if all these new sidechains were beneficial for the ecosystem.
From the three panels I attended, the general vibe was more about humility and self-reflection than the excessive marketing of services.
A Few Days Later – My Reflections
Looking back, my impression of NFT Paris is that it’s closer to what’s happening “on the ground” compared to previous years:
Less of a focus on big revolutions and more on small advancements.
PFP brands are doing their visibility work.
Just like Neal Stephenson’s book, there’s only one centralized “metaverse” left.
Discussions are focused on important topics.
The “free with promo code” format matches the audience’s financial levels.
Interest in on-chain data is almost zero, as if in collective denial.
Web2 brands have vanished.
Even though NFT Paris 2025 was packed, I feel that no one has yet managed to unite this community to build the new internet promised a few years ago. I saw individual brands, but no projects that I believe will still be around in 10 years.
Quick Market Analysis
To better understand the current state of NFTs, let’s look at what’s happened in recent months. I think NFT Paris was a representative example of the general sentiment, but the data speaks for itself.
Looking at Profit & Loss by category, the movement around PFPs in December is very clear: a lot, a lot of profit was taken. Then, nothing. The volumes concentrated on two collections: Pudgy Penguins and Azuki, which announced the airdrop of their tokens ($PENGU and $ANIME, respectively).
Taking advantage of this momentum to capture attention was clever, but it was a very short-term strategy.
The resale volume was impressive but wasn’t enough to attract more buyers than sellers… It didn’t reverse our bear market trend.
Our market is now at levels close to 2020, and it’s hard to imagine volumes (and prices) returning to August 2021 levels. Of course, new projects appear every week, but the ownership duration has significantly decreased since the beginning of the year, showing that liquid NFTs are being held for shorter and shorter periods by traders.
In short, Virtual Lands and Art will take longer to trade but Gaming, PFP, Utility and Collectibles assets are trending right now.
Sidechains like Base or Zora have attracted new people, but since their payment systems are offchain (through tips or rewards redistribution), it’s extremely difficult to calculate them.
Maybe the implementation of protocols like Farcaster in Opensea will make buying NFTs less complicated and give this market a new lease on life?
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