Rodeo: An NFT marketplace fails in the challenging crypto climate

The collapse of Rodeo, a social media-oriented NFT collection platform, signals the ongoing crisis in digital art trading. The team announced this week that they are shutting down operations – the second prominent marketplace facing this necessity. The platform, which launched in the Apple iOS Store in March 2025, had an ambitious concept: it was supposed to reward creators not only for buying and selling NFTs but especially for publishing and engaging with the community.

Rodeo’s Ambition and the Failure to Launch

Kayvon Tehranian, founder and CEO of Rodeo, revealed the reasons for the failure in a statement on X. The core problem was that the platform could not build the necessary user base. “We believed that collecting could be playful and communal – not just transactional. This belief guided every one of our product decisions,” Tehranian said. Despite this vision, Rodeo could not achieve its ambitious goal because the required scaling for economic profitability was lacking. The platform had integrated complex blockchain and crypto features to give users easy access without technical expertise – but this proved insufficient.

Continuing operations is no longer sustainable. To support users during the transition, Rodeo developed a comprehensive migration system. Users can transfer their media and metadata to Arweave, the decentralized data storage platform of blockchain. Additionally, Rodeo offers a special migration tool to help users transfer their assets from the platform’s smart contract. The timeline is specific: Rodeo will continue normal operations until February 10, then switch to a read-only mode, and will be fully shut down by March 10.

The NFT Market in Free Fall Since the 2022 Crash

Alongside Rodeo’s demise, Tehranian announced the transfer of the digital art platform Foundation to Blackdove. The project was launched as an experiment to ensure fair compensation models for artists online, and has since overseen primary sales worth $230 million. Under new management, Foundation will continue but commits to new long-term goals.

These developments reflect the crisis that has gripped the entire NFT market. Since the major crash in 2022, the sector has been in continuous decline, interrupted only by short price spikes without sustainable recovery. The numbers show the dramatic situation: In January 2022, the NFT trading volume on Ethereum peaked at nearly $5 billion. By January 2026, this volume had collapsed to just $159.2 million – a decline of over 96 percent, according to data from CryptoSlam.

Other Platforms Follow: Nifty Gateway Modernizes Its Exit

Nifty Gateway, an early leader from the 2021 NFT boom, has also clarified its wind-down strategy. The company announced that it will use Arweave for transferring media and metadata in the future – similar to Rodeo. Nifty Gateway extended the deadline for users to transfer their assets to April 23 and is developing a mass distribution tool for users with multiple NFTs. This will give users enough time to settle their positions before the deadline. Originally, Nifty Gateway announced its closure without explaining the background – a notice now being clarified with concrete support measures.

Rodeo’s shutdown underscores a larger phenomenon: the NFT market, once a showcase of euphoric speculation, is undergoing a structural transformation. Platforms like Rodeo, which pursued innovative approaches, are unable to withstand market pressure, while established players like Nifty Gateway are winding down their operations professionally – a symbol of an industry in transition.