At the world’s largest Bitcoin conference, Ethereum NFTs have ironically provided one of the few green shoots on red-filled crypto dashboards.
Bitcoin’s largest annual conference opened in Las Vegas on Monday with bitcoin ($BTC) above $78,600 and tens of thousands of visitors gathering at the Venetian Convention Center to hear why it should be worth more.
Three days later, $BTC was less than $75,000.
During the three-day conference, all digital assets in the top 10 were negative, except memecoin DOGE. However, Ethereum is much lower on the rankings $NFT collections from the 2021 bull run rally.
Bored Ape Yacht Club rose 17% over the past seven days, while its two derivatives, Mutant Ape Yacht Club and Bored Ape Kennel Club, rose 25% and 53% respectively.
Pudgy Penguins added 15%, Azuki NFTs rose 34%, Doodles gained 27% and Clone X rose 16%.
The Bitcoin conference’s lineup of institutional speakers, which reportedly attracted more than 40,000 attendees over three days — even though many received free GA passes — would generate a wave of bullish headlines. Instead, it became a classic sell-the-news event.
Meanwhile, on Bitcoin’s closest competitor Ethereum, five-year-old cartoon monkeys became one of the best-performing trades in crypto.
Virtual Land NFTs: Since then, average trading volumes have fallen by 98% $ATH
Percentage gains are easy from a low base
The reality, of course, is that the whole thing $NFT its market cap now stands at $1.9 billion, down from a peak of over $17 billion in April 2022.
So while NFTs have performed well over the past month, they are still well below their previous highs.
Additionally, NFTs are now a thinly traded asset class with high mark-to-market capitalizations, requiring very few purchases to materially change collection valuations.
Even worse, the wash trade accounts for about $24 million of the $48 million total $NFT trading volume over the past week.
The rally is almost purely a floor price phenomenon that is hardly justified by real buying. Over the past thirty days, based on just $125 million in non-wash traded volume, including liquidations and sales at discounted prices, the total market cap of NFTs has risen $480 million.