Experts and investors have mostly pronounced NFTs lifeless, with the business plunging to a three-year poor in January. But NFT recipients and makers aren’t willing to abandon them to the grave just yet.

That much was distinct as crypto companies, degens, and buyers alike paraded around NFT Paris 2025 next year.

Image: NFT Paris

The two-day meeting, which bills itself as Europe’s largest Web3 sensible, brought an estimated 20, 000 visitors to La Grande Villette, an imposing fortress-like architecture at the edge of Paris ‘ sprawling La Villette area.

The original butcher was a fitted stomping ground for a party of an economy that is, quite simply, on life support. But ensconced within the theater’s glass and cast-iron surfaces, NFT enthusiasts may rhythm out naysayers’ sound.

The league’s key step hosted a generally steady stream of panels, fireside chats, and speeches Thursday and Friday, despite a dozen scheduling hiccups. The seminars spanned a wide range of topics—the power of Internet rights, improvements in on-chain games, and the latest and greatest ( and mostly underwhelming ) digital jewellery and drawings on offer.

Image: Liz Napolitano

Right-click and saving Fibrils

Many of the show’s speakers offered up tips to shepherds a much-needed restoration of the business for non-fungible tokens—the one-time Web3 boys whose fall from grace has served as fodder for many Crypto Twitter postmortems.

Two years ago, NFT buying fell off a rock. NFT sales volume nosedived from$ 23 million to$ 8 million from 2022 to 2023, remaining flat between 2024 and the year prior, on-chain data provider CryptoSlam’s data shows. The same information indicates sales are on record to drop more also in 2025.

Meanwhile, CryptoPunks, Bored Ape Yacht Club and Pudgy Penguins—the three largest NFT collections by market capitalization—are down 37 %, 40 % and 52 % within the past year, according to CoinGecko data.

In an apparent appreciation of the NFT business retreat, the league’s organizers also hosted two tech-focused summits at this year’s function: The AI-focused Company Paris and the more institutional-leaning RWA Summit, focused on tokenizing real-world assets. But while both stages drew sizable crowds, the heart and soul of the conference remained on-chain art.

Vibes in Paris

In fact, NFT Paris 2025 maintained all the trappings of an event whose primary audience is Crypto Twitter anons and PFP hoarders. A towering ApeChain gorilla greeted guests at the entrance of the conference venue, joined by a dubious cat-like mascot my colleagues later informed me was actually the GRIND token hamster.

Image: NFT Paris

Further inside, attendees milled around the conference floor, sporting the kind of garb most fitting for an event catered to the terminally online: jeans, baseball caps, t-shirts, and shades designed to protect from doxxers as much as the sun. Hardly any suits were in sight.

Image: NFT Paris

Guests powered through the conference by crushing cans of Rekt energy drinks in between panels and demos, and by venturing outside to rip vapes and drag on cigarettes in crummy 30-degree weather. ( That’s sub-zero degrees Celsius for our non-American readers. )

Image: NFT Paris

At the end of each day, herds of conference-goers braved the bitter cold and scattered showers to throw back eclectically-named drinks at bars and rooftops throughout the City of Lights. Several side events hosted local DJs who played mostly bland or indiscernible tracks to which few people danced.

Some events seemed to have little to do with NFTs or the conference itself, while others were obviously organized by overzealous community leaders committed to the bit—a magic-themed Taproot Wizards party at the American Church of Paris comes to mind.

Other side event events tried to thread the needle between the conference and the kind of boozy after-hours activities that appeal to magic-internet-money gamblers. Hardware wallet manufacturer Ledger hosted a swanky rooftop shindig at its office in the , adoring the walls with digital art pieces that live on-chain. However, many of those displays appeared to prove more useful as backdrops for drunken selfies than conversation starters.

Fortunately ( or not ), nobody seemed to mind.

Image: Liz Napolitano

Whether you found yourself at church slinging back dubious-looking potions with a couple of wizards or taking in views of the Eiffel Towel from Ledger’s stately rooftop terrace, you would be hard-pressed to find a single grimacing guest.

Everyone’s bags were shrinking, but that wasn’t the point, as one NFT developer put it to .

” The Bitcoin community is all about investments”, they said. ” This is about having fun”.

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