Indices that track the prices of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are up nearly 10% this month, outpacing ether (ETH)the cryptocurrency many are denominated in, which gained just over 2%.

Nansen’s NFT-500 index, which tracks the 500 most valuable NFTs, is up 9.35% year-to-date, while Blue Chip 10 is up a similar amount. Ether, according to CoinDesk Index Dataadvanced 2.2%.

In an interview with CoinDesk at Taiwan Blockchain Week, Animoca Brands founder Yat Siu pointed to the new maturity and diversity of the NFT space as the reason prices have recovered from the winter 2022-2023 crypto lows.

“Most NFT speculators and GameFi space left, which has strengthened the base as the remaining people are genuinely interested,” he said.

January’s gains are unique because ether NFT prices initially failed to keep up with the cryptocurrency’s advance later in the year. Traders, however, appear to have changed their minds as the hunt utilityor real-world uses, is enabled.

The rise comes even as the average price of an NFT drops 13% to $107, according to CryptoSlam data. The number of transactions increased by 30% while sales volume fell 36% to US$1.1 billion for the month. Wash tradinga form of market manipulation in which buyer and seller conspire to give the appearance of demand, is responsible for 39% of all volume, according to data from CryptoSlam.

Some NFT-adjacent crypto sectors are not doing so well.

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