NFTs Are So Back
ETH is pumping, and guess what, so are its NFTs. Find out what rallied that hardest this weekend, plus what new trend might be confirmed.
TylerD's Market Summary
GM!
Today's top news includes:
Pudgy's soar to new ATH, settle at 9.75 in huge weekend
Several other PFPs rally 40-75% as trading volume finds new high
Mad Lads hit ATH at 187 SOL, Bodoggos and Claynos jump
Christie's announces major curated auctions at Art Basel
Crypto sees major rally, BTC at $41.6k, ETH $2,240
📈 NFT Weekend Recap
Things were a little slow in the NFT world last week.
But they picked up this weekend.
Sunday trading volume hit a new several-month high, led by the Pudgy Penguins which smashed through to a massive new ATH.
Mad Lads hit a new ATH on Solana as well.
NFTs are hot, across chains.
What's Happening?
Trading volume had been in a local downtrend, reaching just $18.7M on Saturday.
Sunday changed that, nearly doubling to a whopping $34.7M.
And PFPs were the winner.
Pudgy's Blow Off Top
Pudgy Penguins reached a new ATH of 11.6 ETH in a crazy run Sunday morning before settling back at 9.75 ETH this morning.
That's still a whopping 59% gain on the week, and puts the USD price of 1 Pudgy at $21,840.
Lil Pudgy's performed slightly better on the week, +63% to 0.81 ETH, and Pudgy Rogs jumped 49% to 0.51 ETH.
Now all eyes turn to the Pudgy Art Basel event and what announcements Luca might have in store (he's promised at least 1 coming).
PFP Rally
Pudgy's weren't the only PFPs who caught rallies.
At one point on Sunday, 42 different sets on Blur were up 10% or more.
A few big winners on the week:
Kanpai Pandas +79% to 1.58 ETH
Sappy Seals +74% to 0.83 ETH
DigiDaigaku +70% to 6.36 ETH
Pixel Vault Founder's DAO + 64% to 0.3 ETH
Redacted Remilio's + 62% to 0.79 ETH
Milady +61% to 3.86 ETH
Pixelmon +47% to 1.38 ETH
World of Women +47% to 1.42 ETH
Several major winners there across different areas of the PFP market.
Some have specific drivers (i.e. Pixel Vault with their gaming ecosystem set to launch, and Pixelmon with token and gaming plans coming soon).
Others may just be tailing the Pudgy love (Seals, Kanpais).
And some feel totally random (World of Women).
At this point, we'll take it.
Solana PFPs caught some love as well, with Mad Lads finding a new ATH at 187 SOL ($11,565 or 5.16 ETH).
Kanpai Pandas on SOL also jumped 68%, Claynos +28% and Bodoggos +48% to lead top movers.
Views Enters Price Discovery
Another fun storyline from the weekend was a recent success in the AI art market.
Views by Delta Sauce ran to a 1.4 ETH at peak on Sunday before settling at 1 ETH this morning.
That's a clean 10x for minters in just a few days and a solid 3-4x for those early secondary buyers.
Serious collectors and DAOs seem to be finding this one, with calls of it being "the next Life in West America."
We will see if those predictions pan out, but nice to see some big movement in an otherwise quiet digital art sector.
NFT Market Overview
Now for a quick look at broader price action.
Here is a quick rundown of the notable floors and their 7-day price changes:
Fidenza: 68.8 ETH (+5%)
CryptoPunks: 57.25 ETH (+1%)
Ringers: 34.2 ETH (-2%)
BAYC: 30.2 ETH (+1%)
Gazers: 11.5 ETH (even)
Grifters: 10.27 ETH (+22%)
Pudgy Penguins: 9.75 ETH (+58%)
Chromie Squiggle: 8.99 ETH (-3%)
Winds of Yawanawa: 7.98 ETH (+8%)
Azuki: 6.77 ETH (+10%)
MAYC: 5.84 ETH (+2%)
Captainz: 4.69 ETH (+10%)
Milady: 3.86 ETH (+61%)
PROOF: 3.58 ETH (+8%)
DeGods: 3.45 (-3%)
Otherside Koda: 3.3 ETH (+16%)
An interesting week.
The leaders were mostly even, with almost all of the gains coming in the mid-caps.
Pengus led of course, though Grifters had a great week jumping back over 10 ETH, and Milady's bounced back hard to a 3.86 ETH floor.
As a result, NFT Stat's large-cap PFP index moved sharply up, and his mid-cap is likely up even more.
Squiggles dipping below 9 ETH during this market run is a bit unexpected, but perhaps setting up nice buy opportunities for those with longer time horizons.
What also stands out - most of the price action once again came in the Thursday-Sunday window.
If that plays out again this week, the trend will be confirmed.
And what does it mean? Buy on Thursday, sell on Sunday.
👥 FriendTech Trend Tracker
The FriendTech farm is moving along quietly, but steadily.
TVL is up another 12% on the week at $37.7M (16.8k ETH), as buyers continue to slowly return.
In fact buyers have outpaced sellers every day since Nov 22, leading to "up only" action since the last big sell cascade.
Why?
For one, better points.
Points have come in around 150 points per ETH portfolio value for the past two weeks.
That's about 2x what they were for most of October and November, and perhaps due to nerfing self-owned keys again.
Racer deleting his X account and solely conversing inside FriendTech seems to have helped as well.
And the latest update - the team has transferred ownership of its smart contract and funds to a new combination of multi-sig and professional custody (with Coinbase).
The idea here was to improve security and allow easier tax obligations (and that tax bill is growing with $32.9M in fees generated this year).
As long as points remain this high and Racer and crew don't make any major mistakes, the farm will likely continue quietly and peacefully for the next few weeks.
But will that be enough for a good airdrop?
🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the weekend in NFTs:
Trading volume spiked hard on Sunday to $34.7M, a new local high; the leaderboard was very green with 40+ projects setting double-digit gains
Sprotoladys led top movers up 187%; Kanpai Pandas led notable movers, +80% to 1.6 ETH
Christie's announced a new curated auction at Art Basel with 24 big artists including Otherworld, Ryan Koopman, Jack Butcher, Bryan Brinkman, Grant Yun & more
fxhash delayed its launch of fxhash 2.0 and its ETH mints until Dec 12
Opepen Release 11 "Opepengs" rallied to a 4 ETH floor on the back of the Pudgy Penguin price action
XCOPY's "SIMULACRUM" opened at a 7.68 ETH floor after 3 days of secondary trading, though just 2 sales so far
Pixelmon shared its progress from November, including a partnership with Horizen Labs, success with its new game "Kevin the Adventurer" and other key developments
Deeze and Goonz World sold out their 999 "Burnt Boy" NFTs within 24 hours in their sale on Magic Eden
🌎 Around Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
The crypto market surged over the weekend; BTC +6% at $41,860; ETH +3.8% at $2,240; SOL -2.65% at $61.65
$BLUR ended the week even at $0.53, trading within +/-10% throughout the week
Inspect added 0xQuit and Cygaar as Technical Advisors and the newest additions to the Inspect team
🚀 NFT Total Volume
Pudgy Penguins (4,661 ETH, 9.75 ETH Floor)
BAYC (4,384 ETH, 30.2 ETH)
MAYC (2,330 ETH, 5.84 ETH)
Azuki (1,254 ETH, 6.69 ETH)
Lil Pudgys (1,185 ETH, 0.83 ETH)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase
Sprotoladys (187%, 0.11 ETH Floor)
Kanpai Pandas (80%, 1.59 ETH)
Realms (66%, 0.75 ETH)
Skyborne (63%, 0.18 ETH)
Candy Collective (59%, 0.69 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals
Today is a slow day of drops to start the week.
The highlight is likely Memes by 6529, with Bryan Brinkman as the card artist. Bryan has a huge following and is broadly well-liked, so expect big demand on this one.
See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor.
Memes by 6529 (11:00 a.m. ET)
Art Blocks Presents "Escherly Seeds" (1:00 p.m. ET)
Roope Rainisto x Fellowship - Rainisto Variations (1:00 p.m. ET)
Christie's - Next Wave: The Miami Edit (TBD)
Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.