CryptoPunks set a $100,000 price floor again this week amid big gains for Bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency market, marking a resurgence for the prominent NFT project after months of reduced demand.
This marks the first time the CryptoPunks floor – or the price of the cheapest asset listed on a marketplace – has been above $100,000 since June, according to data from NFT Floor Price.
The rise in the floor price was fueled by a sharp increase in trading volume for the Ethereum NFT collection, which traded more than $14.5 million in the past week and recorded more sales in the past four days than any other comparable period in the past year. reported by pseudonymous analyst Punk9059.
CryptoPunks trading volume has increased by 730% over the past week compared to the previous period, according to data from CryptoSlam. Overall, the NFT market saw trading volume increase by 95% week-on-week to a value of $163 million.
Some of that increased volume can be attributed to newcomers entering the CryptoPunks ecosystem over the past week, bringing the number of unique owners to an all-time high of 3,793, per on-chain data sourced from block explorer Etherscan.
The growing number of unique holders fits a trend for the collection, which was initially claimed for free by a small group of early adopters of Ethereum and NFTs, creating a concentrated distribution of holders.
Why should newcomers watch Punks now? Some buyers may be looking to upgrade their NFT status thanks to the newfound wealth of the cryptocurrency market, which CoinGecko indicates has gained more than $500 billion in total market capitalization in the past seven days.
An example of that phenomenon comes from the pseudonymous Wheresrare on Twitter (aka
“I knew what I had to do,” they added, referring to buying the so-called blue chip NFT, while also thanking fellow stalwarts in the crypto trading trenches.
CryptoPunks is one of the oldest and most notable NFT collections. The 10,000-piece collection was initially free to claim on the Ethereum blockchain in 2017, but later grew to an all-time high price of over $400,000 in November 2021.
It is widely seen as a status symbol for die-hard crypto users, and eye-catching sales figures have also helped boost its status as a digital luxury – with five total on-chain sales above $10 million each, and more than 50 sales above $1 million. historically.
Punks have also gained fame outside of crypto, helped by notable celebrities like Jay-Z and Steve Aoki using them as profile pictures on social media. Despite NFT mania waning from 2021 highs, Jay-Z still represents Punk #6095 to his 2.9 million X followers.
The CryptoPunk features inspired those of many other NFT collections, including Bored Ape Yacht Club, which has historically vied with CryptoPunks for the most valuable NFT collection from the profile photo (PFP) category. Bored Ape Yacht Club’s parent company, Yuga Labs, eventually acquired the CryptoPunks collection from its creators in March 2022
Edited by Andrew Hayward