In the fourth quarter of 2024, total NFT sales volume for the immutable X and immutable ZKEVM increased by 55.3% per quarter.
Messari’s latest analysis reveals that the figure has risen from $51.2 million to $79.5 million.
Market participation will sink
Despite this growth, both daily sellers and buyers have dropped significantly, with daily sellers dropping by 43.0% from about 1,500 to 880, and daily buyers drop by 38.1% from about 1,300 to 800.
Sales are driven primarily by strong demand for Guardians Heroes and Avatar NFT guilds, accounting for more than 99% of NFT trading volume this quarter. Most of the sales took place in the immutable Zkevm where the Guardians NFT guild is traded. Additionally, the unchanging ZKEVM saw a significant 73.3% increase in average daily NFT sales volume, up from around $484,000 in the third quarter to $839,000, increasing its total sales share by more than 97% across both chains.
During the same period, the unchanging ZKEVM saw a decline in user engagement following a record high in the third quarter. In fact, average daily trading fell 21.1% per quarter, down from around 595,000 in the third quarter to around 469,000 in the fourth quarter. Similarly, the average daily active address fell from 23.8%, from around 267,000 to 204,000, while the average daily new address fell 29.8% by the end of the quarter to around 32,000.
This decline in activity reflects the broader trends in the GameFi market, according to Messari. This could reflect the cooldown after the third quarter surge driven by popular game releases such as Guild of Guardians, Immortal Rising 2 and Illuvium.
Throughout last year, we have steadily expanded our developer access to ZKEVM. In October, the platform removed the deployer AllowList, allowing for unauthorized deployment of smart contracts and applications. The move places the immutable ZKEVM to lower the developer entry barrier and increase developer activity in the coming months.
In the fourth quarter of 2024, the average daily trading fees for the immutable ZKEVM fell quarterly, from approximately 574 IMX to 477 IMX to 477 IMX each. Messari believes this decline is due to reduced network congestion. This was the result of a decline in transaction activity over the period. To improve the user experience, Immutable has implemented a policy that covers all gas fees for immutable passport holders, removing the need for players to pay gas fees, thereby reducing friction in the trading process.
By the end of 2024, the total value (TVL) locked in immutable distributed finance (DEFI) had fallen to $13.8 million. This decline is likely due to the quarterly decline in the price of IMX tokens, resulting in a decrease in the USD value of locked assets.
However, TVL measured on IMX showed a positive trend, increasing by around 17% per quarter to IMX 1.33 million.
Unchanging SEC troubles
On November 1, 2024, Immutable announced that it had received a Wells notification from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), an enforcement action regarding the sale of IMX tokens in 2021. Immunity expressed concern about the notice and issued a statement that it was issued with limited prior communication and minimal details.
The company then emphasized that the notification was delivered shortly after the initial direct interaction with the securities regulator, which raised questions about process timing and transparency.
Fast forward to 2025, the SEC has shut down several cryptographic investigations, but there are no enforcement fees due to probes to Opsy, Gemini, Robin Hood Crypto and Uniswap. However, investigations on immutable and other platforms such as Crypto.com and Unicoin are still underway.
