Is NFT Winter Over? Prices Climb as Bitcoin and Ethereum Surge

Rising tides lift all ships—apparently even those of the battered, beleaguered, and oft-eulogized NFT market. 

As top altcoins including Ethereum and Solana continue to steadily pump, largely on the winds of Bitcoin’s tremendously persistent, now weeks-long price rally, NFT collections associated with those blockchain networks now appear to be along for the ride. 

Pudgy Penguins, for example, an Ethereum NFT collection and longtime bear market favorite, has jumped 74% in USD floor price in the last week alone, according to NFT Price Floor. Floor price refers to the lowest listed price for a single NFT in any given collection. Trading volume on Pudgy Penguins has also shot up 394% this week, per CryptoSlam, to nearly $7.5 million worth of NFT sales.

While Pudgy Penguins has enjoyed better fortunes during the ongoing crypto winter than many other Ethereum NFT collections—largely thanks to the project’s prioritization of mainstream partnerships and other IP tie-ins—this week’s gains are distinct. It currently costs $21,289 worth of ETH to buy the cheapest Pudgy Penguin NFT on offer. Before last month, the highest floor price the collection ever reached was just north of $9,000 worth of ETH.

Other Ethereum NFT collections have similarly shot up amidst the crypto market’s tentative comeback. The USD floor price for Azuki, the popular anime-inspired NFT series, is up 28% since Thursday, to $14,803 a pop. Dominant Ethereum NFT collections Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks have spiked 31% and 17% since Thanksgiving, respectively, in that same metric.

Ethereum NFT project Milady Maker also appears to have benefited tremendously from the market’s current mood—USD floor price for the controversial collection has spiked 79% in the last week. 

Ethereum’s steady price increase over the last few weeks, also, can only account for a portion of these good fortunes: Since Turkey Day, the cryptocurrency has climbed just 7.7%, according to CoinGecko.

The NFT rebound doesn’t appear relegated to just Ethereum, either. On Solana, several NFT collections are seeing massive upswings. 

Mad Lads, which has remained Solana’s buzziest NFT project since launching earlier this year, is up 52.6% in the last week—to an eyebrow-raising $10,219 floor price at writing, per Solana Floor. While the project has certainly benefited from Solana’s impressive rally over the last month, it has also gained attention for the perks holders receive in connection to the Backpack app, and the company’s soon-to-launch crypto exchange of the same name.

But as with Ethereum, no single project-specific factor appears to be driving recent gains for NFTs on Solana. The trend appears decidedly market-wide.

In the last week, Solana NFT collection Claynosaurz has shot up 62% in floor price; trading volume for the series soared 324% in the same period. 

Floor prices for the Solana NFT collection Chads have pumped eight times over, from $44 to $359, in the last seven days. In that period, Chads has seen $357,935 worth of trading volume—that’s up 12,914% from the week prior.

Edited by Andrew Hayward