Key Takeaways
- NFTs have taken a battering in the bear market, with floor prices tanking and trading volumes drying up.
- Skeptics have argued that the technology is “dead,” but there are strong reasons to believe that the market is alive and well.
- Recent highlights in the space include Eminem and Snoop Dogg’s Bored Ape-themed VMA performance and DigiDaigaku’s rally to 17 ETH.
Share this article
As crypto winter endures, NFTs continue to suffer. Floor prices for most sought-after collections are well over 50% down from their highs in ETH and dollar terms, while trading volumes have plummeted on OpenSea and other marketplaces. Many projects have disappeared altogether. But while the space may be suffering, several developments over recent weeks hint at signs of life. Between Eminem and Snoop Dogg morphing into Bored Apes at the VMAs, a free mint hitting a 17 ETH floor, and the world’s largest social media firm beefing up its digital collectible functionality, the NFT space seems much livelier than its naysayers would have us believe.
5) The Pudgy Penguin Revival
One of the standout animal avatar collections from crypto’s first “NFT summer,” Pudgy Penguins had a spectacular rise before falling from grace. After internal controversies, it was sold off to entrepreneur and investor Luca Netz for 750 ETH in April, but it struggled to gain momentum amid waning sentiment across the crypto market. However, Ethereum’s favorite flightless birds have made a miraculous comeback in recent weeks, proving that there’s still an appetite for community-driven NFT “PFP” collections.
Enthusiasm for Pudgy Penguins hit its lowest point in months when the floor price hit a local low of around 0.85 ETH on June 13. The floor has posted a significant recovery over recent weeks, helped by prominent crypto personalities such as Polygon’s Mudit Gupta and Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik, who continued to “wear” their Pudgy Penguin NFTs as their Twitter avatars…
