And just like that, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have officially had their first ‘Uptober’.
You’ve been feeling it for weeks, and now the numbers don’t lie; October was a very important month for NFTs. This week, sales have recovered and broken trends, including the seven-month stagnation in monthly NFT sales that October’s $300 million-plus sales ended.
There was a perfect storm brewing this month for NFTs to succeed. That storm resulted in a nine-week high for global NFT sales, even as the total number of transactions slowed to the lowest levels seen in nearly a year. Sellers took advantage of the now perfect conditions to gain liquidity by selling their remaining valuable NFTs. However, it’s hard to say that sellers were the winners here, as trading profits are still largely negative, amounting to $7.8 million.
Still, big NFT sales like Bored Ape Yacht Club #6022which sold for $303,000, helped push average NFT sales prices to a four-month high of $60.38.
Social finance (SoFi) platforms continue to play a major role in the success of NFT, with their continued struggle to attract merchants. Friend.tech failed to reach $1 million in trading volume on several days last week, and Stars Arena is now collapsing under accusations of mishandling funds. The top five SoFi platforms all saw their total value locked (TVL) decline this week, with Stars Arena falling the most, down 86.11%.
Continued weakness in SoFi caused traders to ramp up wash trading again, pushing wash sales up more than 42% from last week to reach a 15-week high of US$58 million.
At least this week, the good times will continue, and the script couldn’t have been more perfect. First off, the Forgotten Runes project is hosting a massive metaverse Halloween party today, and the entire NFT community is invited to join in.
The party, called Nightmare Run, is powered by MSquared, the technology behind Yuga Lab’s Otherside. This metaverse can host tens of thousands of gamers in a single live instance, and it’s expected to have quite a large turnout.
Later this week it’s Bored Ape’s turn to party with Ape Fest 2023 taking place in Hong Kong on November 4. For those who can’t make it, The DAM SHOW is streaming interviews and alpha. If you haven’t seen an NFT party yet, here’s your chance for a sneak peek.
Let’s appreciate October for the treat it was for those who made it through this long NFT winter. Maybe we’ll find out it was a trick all along, but for now it’s pretty sweet.
View the graphs
- Bored Ape Yacht Club is riding the hype wave to Ape Fest in Hong Kong this week. The collection’s minimum prices have increased by over 30 ETH, with average sales peaking at $79,000 on October 28.
- The Captainz The sale of $MEME tokens is creating a frenzy among PFPs that we haven’t seen in a long time, and sales of the collection are up over 164% in the past week.
- AOI engine minted the latest NFT from ArtBlocks’ founder Snowfro last week as part of Red Bull’s Velocity Racing Series NFTs. The collection was issued at 0.3 ETH and currently has a floor price of 0.8 ETH.
- CryptoPunks have had 12 NFT sales this week priced over $100,000, representing 48 of the top 100 NFT collectible sale this week.
- Ethereum NFTs are clearly having a big month, but the majority of total sales are wash sales, with US$61 million in wash sales representing over 51% of Ethereum’s sales.
- Solanas happiness $7.77 million is honestly more than happiness. Major developments from Mad Labs, the Camera Mint function of the Phantom Wallet and the new cuddly toys and animations from Claynosaurz show that Solana is ready for primetime.
- Bitcoin is in the top 5 for the second week in a row, driven by huge BRC-20 sales, especially the $2.5 million in sales from the $SATS BRC-20 collection, and renewed interest in Ordinals.