NodeMonkes, Bitcoin Puppets lead as NFT sales rebound

The volume of non-fungible tokens in the Bitcoin network bounced back last week as the industry stabilized.

Bitcoin NFT sales rose

According to CryptoSlam, sales of Bitcoin (BTC) NFTs jumped by 56% in the last seven days to over $20 million. The number of buyers in the network rose by 48% to 29,403.

NodeMonkes, a relatively new collection, was the best-performing NFT in the ecosystem with over $3.4 million in sales and 302 transactions. Only Immutable X’s Guild of Guardian Heroes collection had more sales during the week.

Bitcoin Puppets had a sales volume of $3.03 million. That’s a 239% increase from the previous week.

Ordinal Maxi Biz, whose sales rose to over $1.89 million, followed. Taproot Witches, meanwhile, sold $1.3 million.

Ethereum, Solana

Ethereum eth-1.07%Ethereum remained the most active network for NFT, handling sales worth $28 million. Solana sol-0.96%Solana had $13 million in sales while BNB Chain had $3.7 million.

September has been another bad month for NFTs as total sales dropped by 48% to $318 million. Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Solana’s sales were $108 million, $63 million, and $61 million, respectively.

Bitcoin bounces back

The weekly NFT sales rose as the prices of most cryptocurrencies bounced back. Bitcoin rose to $66,000 for the first time since July while the total market cap of all coins jumped to $2.3 trillion. 

Most importantly, the closely watched crypto fear and greed index rose to the greed zone of 60 for the first time in two months. Historically, traders move to riskier assets like stocks and cryptocurrencies when there is greed in the market — recently due to the Federal Reserve‘s cutting of interest rates, China’s stimulus, and the ongoing drop in stablecoin holdings among smart money investors. 

As shown below, the volume of stablecoin holdings among these investors has dropped to the lowest point in two years.

The Nansen chart also shows that these holdings — after surging in 2022 as the FTX and Terra ecosystem collapsed — have been trending down since then. Smart money investors likely reduced their stablecoin holdings and shifted to cryptocurrencies and NFTs.

The key risk investors face with NFTs is that the industry has become highly saturated, with thousands of new collections. A recent report reveals that 96% of more than 5,000 existing NFT collections are “dead.”