Trading for Ethereum NFT Collectibles Cools Down After Frenzy

By Ekin Genç

Declining sales volumes from several top NFT projects suggest that the non-fungible trading frenzy that began two weeks ago has cooled down, data from CryptoSlam! shows.

Non-fungible tokens became popular this year after the Internet adopted them as decentralized ownership certificates for digital or physical assets. NFT sales exploded in February but hype around them soon subsided after the market became oversaturated.

Things picked back up for NFT collectible projects late last month. The mini-bull run started on July 31, when a sudden surge of interest in CryptoPunks avatars pushed the daily trading volume of the four-year-old project up from $1.8 to $41.5 million within a week; the average price of the 8-bit avatars rose by 53%.

The CryptoPunks trading frenzy has since subsided; sales decreased by 73% this week. But its brief spurt helped other crypto-collectibles rise to the top.

Over the past month, Art Blocks sales have risen by 710% to a total of nearly $200 million. Sales of the NFT art, which are computer-generated according to a random seed phrase, rose by a further 50% this past week, scoring another $61 million. Last night, Chromie Squiggle #3784 sold for 750 ETH ($2.3 million), the project’s highest sale so far.

But the gold spell is beginning to wane for other collectibles projects that enjoyed a trading boost thanks to CryptoPunks.

One popular CryptoPunks imitator, collectibles project Bored Ape Yacht Club, became the second-most sold NFT avatar project this week; sales soared by 153% this past month and the cheapest NFT rose from 10 ETH on August 3 to 15 ETH on August 10, a floor that remains today. But the rise was short-lived. Although sales are up 149% this month, they’re down by 49% this week.

And sales of Meebits, a crypto-collectibles project from CryptoPunks creators Larva Labs, fell by 70.43% this week, undoing some of its monthly spike of 336.52%.

Although trading may decline, high-ticket NFT sales are unlikely to end any time soon. Christie’s will auction off Bored Ape NFTs next month along with CryptoPunks and Meebits NFTs. Rare NFTs go for millions, and the auction houses tend to sell only the rarest.

Recommended News