Bitcoin NFTs make a comeback in weekly sales, flipping Ethereum (ETH)

Bitcoin NFTs set a year-to-date record for daily sales volume over the weekend, even outperforming Ethereum for the week. Bitcoin nonfungible token (NFT) sales have just eclipsed Ethereum in the previous seven days, thanks to a rapid surge in Bitcoin Ordinals-based NFT collections, led mostly by NodeMonkes. There was an 80% week-over-week increase in Bitcoin NFT sales to $168.5 million. Three of the top five best-selling Bitcoin NFT collections were based on Bitcoin Ordinals. Ethereum generated only $162 million in sales. Ordinals started in January 2023 and gave tools for creating NFT-like assets by allowing users to embed files, such as images, into satoshis (sats), Bitcoin’s smallest unit. Uncategorized Ordinals (not part of any collection) generated the most sales, totaling over $43 million across more than 47,000 transactions. NodeMonkes, a Bitcoin-based collection, came in second with almost $41 million in sales, representing a nearly 170% rise from the previous week. The Ordinals collection Natcats finished fourth for the week, with sales exceeding $10 million.

NodeMonkes is a collection of 10,000 distinct pixelated profile photo (PFP)-style Ordinals that debuted in December. It claims to be the first 10,000-strong collection on Bitcoin. Other 10,000 count Ordinals collections have previously released, but the NodeMonkes team etched its collection onto the blockchain in February 2023, just a month after Ordinals’ inception.

On March 2, X user “NFTstats” stated that NodeMonkes’ market valuation had surpassed $500 million, making it the third-largest PFP-style NFT collection across all blockchains, trailing only the Ethereum-based Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC).

NodeMonkes overturned the Pudgy market cap and surged to third place overall in terms of PFPs. Just three days ago, Pudgy’s market capitalization was more than twice that of NodeMonkes. xxPuppets have also flipped Milady. It is unclear why the collection has recently received so much attention. GRAYCRAFT founder Kevin Wu stated in a Feb. 22 X post that NodeMonkes has “meaningful provenance” because it is the first PFP-style NFT collection on “the first chain ever,” providing it a “great competing narrative” that speculative investors may now be buying into.

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