It appears that Wylie Aronow, co-founder of Yuga Labs, has taken it upon himself to try to revive the ailing NFT market.
After taking to fungible token releases made since the last bull run. After starting Monday by purchasing a rare CryptoPunk for 600 ether ($1.14 million), Aronow has spent a total of more than $1.5 million, according to data from The Block Research.
Aronow has purchased more than a dozen new tokens and has spread the love by purchasing from well-known collections outside the Yuga Labs universe, including NFTs from Doodles, Meebits, Pudgy Penguins, and famed digital artist Beeple.
“I’m going to grab some non-BAYC NFTs this week. Don’t worry. I’m still aappapi and I love you very much,” Aronow posted to his more than 155,000 followers on Monday. “In all seriousness, I had always wanted to join more communities on the internet, but I felt I had a responsibility to limit myself while I was still working at Yuga,” he posted on Wednesday.
While Aronow co-founded Yuga Labs, by far the best-known maker of NFTs, he took a leave of absence earlier this year due to health concerns.
‘More momentum’
“The founder of Yuga Labs is buying popular NFT collections to add more momentum, volume and traders to the market, similar to what celebrities and bigwigs used to do when NFTs were at their peak to cause FOMO” , according to The Block Research. Analyst Brad Kay. “It’s absolutely extraordinary. It’s not every day that someone buys $1.5 million worth of NFTs across many collections.”
Aronow’s aggressive buying follows the NFT market’s best month in a while. NFT volumes rose more than 20% in October, according to data from The Block Research. But the industry continues to struggle with a downturn that has forced both Yuga Labs and market giant OpenSea to lay off staff.