Bitcoin NFTs make comeback in weekly sales, flipping Ethereum

Bitcoin NFTs posted a year-to-date record daily sales volume over the weekend and even beat out Ethereum for the week.

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 to ability to insert files, such as an image, into satoshis (sats) — the smallest unit of Bitcoin.

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.

Related: Ordinals trader gets Bitcoin back after fat-fingered NFT purchase

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).

NodeMonkes have flipped Pudgy market cap and jumped to the #3 overall spot in terms of PFPs.

Just 3 days ago, Pudgy market cap was more than 2x NodeMonkes.

Puppets have flipped Milady as well.

The speed of moves in this space is pretty insane. pic.twitter.com/ZMafTWJPl2

— NFTstats.eth (@punk9059) March 3, 2024

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.

NFT Collector, DCinvestor: Is this the best NFT collection in the world?