Bitcoin NFTs make comeback in weekly sales, flipping Ethereum

Mar 4, 202403:29 UTC

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Bitcoin nonfungible tokens (NFT) sales have just surpassed Ethereum over the last seven days following a sudden spike of Bitcoin Ordinals-based NFT collections, led largely by the collection NodeMonkes.

Bitcoin NFT sales rocketed 80% week-over-week to $168.5 million, with three of the top five best-selling NFT collections for the week being Bitcoin Ordinals-based. Ethereum only drew in $162 million in sales, according to CryptoSlam data.

Ordinals launched in January 2023 and provided the tools to create NFT-like assets by giving users the ability to insert files, such as an image, into satoshis (sats) — the smallest unit of Bitcoin BTCUSD.

Uncategorized Ordinals (not part of any collection) drew in the most sales, with over $43 million worth sold across more than 47,000 transactions.

A close second was the Bitcoin-based collection NodeMonkes, with over $41 million in sales, a nearly 170% increase from the week prior. The Ordinals collection Natcats took the fourth position for the week with over $10 million in sales.

NodeMonkes is a collection of 10,000 unique pixelated profile picture (PFP)-style Ordinals launched in December and claims to be the first 10,000-strong collection on Bitcoin.

Other 10,000-count-Ordinals collections had launched prior, but the NodeMonkes team had etched their collection onto the blockchain in February 2023, just a month after Ordinals launched.

X user NFTstats posted on March 2 that NodeMonkes’ market capitalization reached over $500 million, making it the third-largest PFP-style NFT collection among all blockchains behind only the Ethereum-based Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC).

It’s unclear exactly why the collection has gained its recent attention.

NFT collection Graycraft founder Kevin Wu wrote in a Feb. 22 X post that NodeMonkes has “meaningful provenance” as it’s the first PFP-style NFT collection on “the first chain ever” — giving it a “great competing narrative,” which speculative investors could now be buying into.