Nifty Gateway, an early NFT marketplace founded in 2018 and acquired by Gemini, will shut down on February 23 after entering withdrawal-only mode. The platform, which once reported $300 million in gross merchandise value in 2021 and partnered with Sotheby's for a $17 million NFT drop, is closing amid a sharp decline in NFT trading activity. Users must withdraw their assets by the deadline, after which they can no longer list, buy, or sell NFTs on the site.
The closure of Nifty Gateway underscores the broader collapse of the NFT market, which saw trading volumes drop from a peak of $4 billion to roughly $800 million within a year, with 95 percent of NFTs now considered worthless. Major auction houses like Christie's and Sotheby's have scaled back their Web3 initiatives, and several other digital platforms have already shuttered. The shutdown signals the end of the speculative NFT boom that briefly reshaped the digital art economy.