Ordinals—the Bitcoin equivalent of NFTs—are on fire as Bitcoin’s price nears an all-time high, and it’s the NodeMonkes collection that is leading the charge after a heavy sales weekend that culminated with the project’s first-ever sale above $1 million worth of BTC.
NodeMonkes is the top-selling individual Ordinals or NFT project over the last seven days, according to data from CryptoSlam, with nearly $45 million worth of secondary market sales during that span.
Over the last 24 hours, only Ethereum NFT project CryptoPunks beats NodeMonkes, thanks to today’s $16 million sale of a single CryptoPunk. Even so, NodeMonkes has piled up about $11.7 million worth of sales during the last day, led by that seven-figure trade.
The “Alien Hoodie” NodeMonke (#2769) sold for 17 Bitcoin early Monday on Magic Eden, or $1.08 million worth at the time. It’s the largest NodeMonke sale to date, and appears to be the second-highest Ordinals sale ever. Last week, the second Ordinals inscription ever made on Bitcoin sold for $1.4 million worth of BTC.
SOLD: Alien Hoodie (#2769) for 17 btc ($1,080,000) on M.E.
The first million dollar monke sale.
Congratulations to buyer & seller.
—— SEND NODES —— pic.twitter.com/9DrvZBJH2X
— NodeMonkes ◉ (@nodemonkes) March 4, 2024
The price of NodeMonkes has skyrocketed in recent weeks as demand for Bitcoin Ordinals ramps up as the leading cryptocurrency itself surges in price.
NodeMonkes started at a price of 0.18 BTC (about $9,300 at the time) two weeks ago, on February 19. Now the cheapest listed NodeMonke on leading marketplace Magic Eden is listed at 0.82 BTC, or nearly $54,400 worth. That puts it near the entry price of leading Ethereum NFT projects like the Bored Ape Yacht Club ($67,000) and Pudgy Penguins ($57,100).
Bitcoin surged above a price of $67,000 on Monday morning, coming closer to its all-time high price ($69,044) than it has since late 2021.
Over the last week, CryptoSlam reports that total Ethereum NFT and Bitcoin Ordinals sales volume is nearly even, with $177.4 million worth for Ethereum and $176.4 million for Ordinals. However, CryptoSlam also tracks the sale of Bitcoin’s BRC-20 tokens—akin to fungible tokens on Ethereum—in that total, so they’re not perfectly comparable stats.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.