CryptoPunks Storms NFT Charts with $46M 24-Hour Sales Volume 

The CryptoPunks collection is definitely having a great weekend after storming the NFT Charts and recording $46 Million NFT Sales within a 24-Hour Period (As of July 31). The sudden surge in volume is attributed to 13 big sales between Friday night and Saturday morning.

The popular NFT Collectibles project stunned the NFT community once again after recording a 667% increase in volume. Moreover, the OG Collectibles edged out Play-to-Earn giant Axie Infinity in the #1 spot by a huge margin. Based on DappRadar Charts, CryptoPunks recorded nearly double the volume of Axie Infinity. 

Now it’s time to answer the question everyone’s asking: what happened?

Analyzing CryptoPunks NFT Sales

Within the last 24 hours, CryptoPunks dominated the Top 15 NFT Sales. It was a massive lockout with the pixelated NFT avatars occupying the top 13 spots. CryptoPunk #5217 sold for 2250 ETH or around $5.45 Million. It is now the third most expensive NFT from the entire Collection. The second and fourth placers are also multi-million dollar NFT Sales: CryptoPunks #2140 ($3.76M), #3831 ($2.08M) and #8472 ($1.71M). 

American Entrepreneur, Gary Vaynerchuk, quickly shared his thoughts about the sale. He tweeted, “This is better not be Tom Brady or Michael Jordan.” Then, in another tweet, he put into words what the entire community was feeling. “There’s nothing like Cryptopunks.” The buzz in the community is that Vaynerchuk was the buyer of the second-largest sale, CryptoPunk #2140 which sold for 1600 ETH or $3.76M. 

Blockchain records show that an anonymous buyer bought 88 CryptoPunks for a total of $5.5 Million in a matter of minutes. Yes, the value makes a good headline but what’s more interesting is the way the NFTs were purchased. The buyer paid a 5 ETH bribe to “@Mining_DAO” to have all purchases on one block so they can buy it in a single purchase. This way he was able to snatch up all Punks at the current price. If the buyer bought the Punks one by one then the market would be alerted and react. For example, they can delist their Punks and offer them for a higher price. According to the rumor mill, these are institutional buyers or venture capitalists.

What’s even more impressive is that the lowest priced of the 13 Top Sales was sold for $135 ETH or $345,000. After the crazy week, the floor price of the Collection is now 29.4 ETH. So a buyer needs to shell out $72, 238 before scoring an NFT. It is definitely for the big leagues with deep pockets and not for newbies in the NFT space.

Why are Collectibles Doing Well?

Metaverse projects are advancing positively in the NFT space. Thus, there will always be a demand to create a visual representation of yourself. That’s why early adopters often use their CryptoPunks, Meebits, BAYC and many more as avatars. It also helped that celebrities, athletes and public figures are heavily promoting Collectibles Project. For example, musicians Steve Aoki and Ja Rule are proudly displaying their NFT acquisitions on Twitter. 

The NFT Market has stabilized compared to its crazy peak 2 months ago. However, we can see that the NFT Market is mimicking the traditional Collectibles Market. This means that a majority of the projects are valued less but there is a small percentage that is very valuable. CryptoPunks is a classic example alongside Bored Ape Yacht Club and Meebits.