CryptoSlam is evolving, and we’re releasing our first-ever NFT collection, arriving on the Solana blockchain. To stay up to date on the arrival of our NFT collection and more, make sure to follow CryptoSlam on X, and turn on notifications. We’re excited
to share more details with you soon. For the Love of the Game (Market Commentary) |
You remember where you were when you had that “aha”
moment with NFTs. You probably remember where you were when the Ethereum Merge took place. You will almost certainly remember where you were at the 2024 Bitcoin halving.
For many of us, this was our first time experiencing a Bitcoin halving while being active in the crypto and the NFT markets. While this helped us have a greater appreciation for what the halving means if I’m being totally honest while appreciating the moment, we were mostly
focusing on the new Runes protocol that came with the halving. Here we are now in the post-halving world, some with freshly etched runes in hand, and just as things were prior, Bitcoin’s ecosystem of different flavored inscriptions continue to be the primary influence on the macro NFT market. Friday in particular saw a frenzy of trading around RSIC, Runestones, Bitcoin Wizards, Pups, Prometheans, and other Rune-facing ordinals collections. Saturday, however, was a different story, with Runes now in the wild, traders were off to the races, battling nearly record high fees in an attempt to mint or trade for early
Runes likes FEHU, RSIC GENESIS RUNES, SATOSHI NAKAMOTO, WANKO MANKO RUNES, and an ever-growing list of names that will never be written in this PG-rated newsletter. Ordinals trading, in particular, drove over $170M in sales on Bitcoin over the past 7d, with the Runestones and Prometheans collections, both of which provide some of the first-ever etched runes to holders, totaling nearly $80M of those sales. Now with Runes set to be extracted from a majority of these collections, we’re likely to see a change in this market, aka declining sales and prices. Unlike BRC-20s, Runes are traded entirely as fungible tokens, so their sales will not reflect as NFT sales.
Where that liquidity will flow is anyone's guess. Will they stay in Runes as
traders bet on the first potentially widely adopted fungible token format on Bitcoin, or will it be swapped out to Solana’s memecoin ecosystem, Blast’s farming protocols, Base’s budding NFTs, or your favorite platforms across blockchains? A look at the Forkast NFT Indexes following the halving may give us a little insight. Study the market and watch for the changes over the next few weeks, and that answer will unfold right in front of us. I’ll just say, I have a hunch that a
shift to NFTs is coming. Arenas are LIVE on the FLOW blockchain! Compete against other players with NO PURCHASE NECESSARY and compete head to head to win valuable rewards! - Ordinals are in the midst of a 38% decrease in sales as Runes are beginning to be extracted from collections, and Ordinals traders move to fungible tokens.
It’s not just sales too, as buyers are down 30%, sellers are down 32%, and transactions are down 34%.
- DMarket is the top-selling NFT collection on CryptoSlam, with over $6.3M in sales, even with sales declining nearly 10%. Gaming skins from CounterStrike, DOTA2, RUST, etc
have no bull or bear market, they’re just always in style.
- Bitcoin Wizards have been one of the hottest collections on any blockchain in the past 7d. With provenance as a collection whose first inscription is sub 100, and
also as one that offers BRC20s and Runes to their holders, there are few collections more desired in the past week than these OG ordinals.
- Mad Lads sales may be showing us a sign of what’s to come on Solana, as the collection saw $4.9M in sales, and a 43% increase in buyers this past week. Solana’s memecoin
ecosystem is beginning to heat up once again, and that means more liquidity for NFT traders.
- Dokyo on Avalanche also continues to be one of the top PFPs across any blockchain. Sales saw an 8.6% increase, up to $4.8M. Is PFP season about to
return?
- CryptoPunks are back on a tear and represent 25 of the top 25 Ethereum collectible NFT sales in the past 7d. The king of the Punks this week is CryptoPunk #58 which sold for 195 $ETH ($617K).
- Mutant Apes and Bored Apes have their own separate storylines driving sales in each collection, but both firmly hold down their regular place in the Top Ten. Mutant Apes fell well below 2 $ETH floor prices recently, and then bounced back to a 2.28 $ETH floor today, while Bored Apes rallied from under 10 $ETH to now 12.65 $ETH following news that Yuga Labs is selling off nearly all of their gaming assets to
Faraway.
- Origin Pass from Polygon’s Dew marketplace grabs the final spot in the Top Ten with a massive $3.8M in sales.
- Bitcoin is still the king of NFTs, as demonstrated by their $91M in NFT sales over
the past 7d. Pay no mind to the declines in sales, because buyers being up 93% is the real winning metric this week. Most of those buyers are flocking to BRC20s and Rune collections, but Bitcoin adoption is real, and it’s still just getting started.
- Ethereum sales fell 12.5% to $50.4M, but like Bitcoin, saw an increase in buyers. In fact, the 26% increase in unique buyers is yet another signal that traders
are starting to shift back to NFT trading, which would be, for some, a much-welcomed change of pace.
- Solana sales barely dipped this week as collectors traded $34.8M worth of NFTs. Solana also saw a 17% increase in buyers, adding to our evidence that a change may
be upon us.
- Polygon, like Solana, saw a miniscule decrease in sales, as sales fell 2.74% to $14.3M. The biggest gains on Polygon this week were also in buyers which were up
over 67% from the prior week.
- Yuga Labs is letting go of a majority of its gaming IP, selling its Legends of the Mara, HV-MTL, and Sewer Pass assets to its gaming partner, Faraway. Even their Chief Gaming Officer, Spencer Tucker, is being shipped off to Faraway, signaling Yuga Labs’ move away from gaming. (Happy Birthday Bored Ape Yacht Club!)
- Degenerate Ape Academy shows how much impact Magic Eden’s Diamond rewards boost can have on a collection’s sales. With the boost enabled on the DAA, sales
have ripped over 2,378%, bringing the collection over $3.1M in sales in the past 7d.
- NBA Top Shot saw a massive 1/1 Ultimate moment sale this past week when the coveted Victor Wembamyama rookie moment sold for $145K in a silent auction.
- DeGods are on the move again in more ways than one. Sales are taking off once again after their founder Frank opened the doors for the ETH collection to be bridged
back to Solana.
- My Pet Hooligan hopped and skipped right up the collection rankings after their $KARRAT token was launched and immediately listed on Coinbase, Crypto.com, Kucoin,
and Gate. The collection saw a 349% increase in sales, now up to $1.8M on the week.
- Guild of Guardians on Immutable-Zk is one of the most promising up-and-coming web3 games, and now boasts a 1m+ player waitlist. Sales this past week came
in at over $2.4M as strong demand for gaming assets drives collection volume.
The Forkast 500 NFT Index reflects that the NFT market has lost -4.39% of its value this week, with most of those losses coming before the Bitcoin halving. Since that moment not only has crypto stabilized, but since Sunday is actually in the
green, up +0.17%.
There is plenty to be optimistic about on the crypto side of the market as Bitcoin typically finds a new ATH after the halving. Given NFTs’ close tie to crypto, the non-fungible token market should see a benefit from it as well. Right now NFT prices are beginning to increase as memecoins heat up, new NFT ecosystems like Base begin to see action, and Blast remains a
hot spot that could ignite NFT trading at any moment.
Be smart and keep your finger on the pulse of this market, by keeping your eyes on CryptoSlam and the indexes. You can stay plugged in by fixing your vision on our daily NFT market updates and live show with Inside NFTs.
Have a MEGA GM! — Yehudah Petscher |
vByte is a measurement used by the Bitcoin blockchain to measure the “weight” or size of a transaction. The blockchain then packages everyone’s transactions together in a block, and that block has a max “weight” limit. The busier the blockchain is, the more you’re going to pay per vByte, so make sure you’re
considering the best time to transact on Bitcoin.
As Bitcoin continues to be adopted and new tech like Runes is born, it has never been more important to understand the technical side of the incredible Bitcoin blockchain.
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