Analysts and traders have largely pronounced NFTs lifeless, with the market plunging to a three-year low in January. However NFT holders and creators aren’t able to consign them to the graveyard simply but.
That a lot was clear as crypto entrepreneurs, degens, and traders alike paraded round NFT Paris 2025 final week.
Picture: NFT Paris
The 2-day convention, which payments itself as Europe’s largest Web3 truthful, introduced an estimated 20,000 attendees to La Grande Villette, an imposing fortress-like construction on the fringe of Paris’ sprawling La Villette park.
The previous slaughterhouse was a becoming stomping floor for a celebration of an trade that’s, fairly frankly, on life assist. However ensconced throughout the venue’s glass and cast-iron partitions, NFT fans may tune out naysayers’ noise.
The convention’s foremost stage hosted a largely regular stream of panels, hearth chats, and speeches Thursday and Friday, regardless of a couple of scheduling hiccups. The displays spanned a variety of matters—the ability of IP possession, developments in on-chain gaming, and the newest and best (and largely underwhelming) digital jewellery and paintings on supply.
Picture: Liz Napolitano
Proper-click and saving NFTs
Lots of the occasion’s audio system supplied up concepts to shepherd a much-needed revival of the marketplace for non-fungible tokens—the one-time Web3 darlings whose fall from grace has served as fodder for numerous Crypto Twitter postmortems.
Two years in the past, NFT buying and selling fell off a cliff. NFT gross sales quantity nosedived from $23 million to $8 million from 2022 to 2023, remaining flat between 2024 and the yr prior, on-chain knowledge supplier CryptoSlam’s knowledge exhibits. The identical knowledge exhibits gross sales are on observe to fall additional nonetheless in 2025.
In the meantime, CryptoPunks, Bored Ape Yacht Membership and Pudgy Penguins—the three largest NFT collections by market capitalization—are down 37%, 40% and 52% throughout the previous yr, in accordance with CoinGecko knowledge.
In an obvious acknowledgement of the NFT market rout, the convention’s organizers additionally hosted two tech-focused summits at this yr’s occasion: The AI-focused XYZ Paris and the extra institutional-leaning RWA Summit, centered on tokenizing real-world property. However whereas each levels drew sizable crowds, the guts and soul of the convention remained on-chain artwork.
Vibes in Paris
Actually, NFT Paris 2025 maintained all the trimmings of an occasion whose major viewers is Crypto Twitter anons and PFP hoarders. A towering ApeChain gorilla greeted friends on the entrance of the convention venue, joined by a doubtful cat-like mascot my colleagues later knowledgeable me was truly the GRIND token hamster.
Picture: NFT Paris
Additional inside, attendees milled across the convention flooring, sporting the type of garb most becoming for an occasion catered to the terminally on-line: denims, baseball caps, t-shirts, and shades designed to guard from doxxers as a lot because the solar. Hardly any fits have been in sight.
Picture: NFT Paris
Visitors powered by the convention by crushing cans of Rekt vitality drinks in between panels and demos, and by venturing outdoors to tear vapes and drag on cigarettes in crummy 30-degree climate. (That’s sub-zero levels Celsius for our non-American readers.)
Picture: NFT Paris
On the finish of every day, herds of conference-goers braved the bitter chilly and scattered showers to throw again eclectically-named drinks at bars and rooftops all through the Metropolis of Lights. A number of facet occasions hosted native DJs who performed largely bland or indiscernible tracks to which few individuals danced.
Some occasions appeared to have little to do with NFTs or the convention itself, whereas others have been clearly organized by overzealous neighborhood leaders very dedicated to the bit—a magic-themed Taproot Wizards get together on the American Church of Paris involves thoughts.
One for the books.
See you in 2026!🕯️ pic.twitter.com/9OTMVBbsiz
— NFT Paris (@nft_paris) February 17, 2025
Different facet occasion occasions tried to string the needle between the convention and the type of boozy after-hours actions that attraction to magic-internet-money gamblers. {Hardware} pockets producer Ledger hosted a swanky rooftop shindig at its workplace within the third arrondissement, adoring the partitions with digital artwork items that reside on-chain. Nevertheless, lots of these shows appeared to show extra helpful as backdrops for drunken selfies than dialog starters.
Luckily (or not), no one appeared to thoughts.
Picture: Liz Napolitano
Whether or not you discovered your self at church slinging again dubious-looking potions with a few wizards or taking in views of the Eiffel Towel from Ledger’s stately rooftop terrace, you’ll be hard-pressed to discover a single grimacing visitor.
Everybody’s luggage have been shrinking, however that wasn’t the purpose, as one NFT developer put it to Decrypt.
“The Bitcoin neighborhood is all about investments,” they stated. “That is about having enjoyable.”
Edited by Stephen Graves
