Global NFT sales rose 22.7% in December from the previous month, which appears like a robust surge in demand but is more attributed to holders selling and buying back digital assets to lock in tax savings.

Total NFT sales increased to US$678.2 million in December, the highest since June, according to data from NFT aggregation site CryptoSlam. The number of NFT sellers rose by 11.8% from November, while buyers fell 8.6%, the data showed.

“What we’re seeing I would speculate is just end-of-year tax loss harvesting from the players who are still engaged in NFTs,” said Yehudah Petscher, NFT relations strategist for CryptoSlam. “There are services offering to buy NFTs for pennies, for the purpose of loss harvesting, and multiple of these services are being sold thousands of NFTs from savvy traders.”

(by Timmy Shen)