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NFT Markets Post Record-Breaking Week

NFT marketplace OpenSea saw record trading volume on Saturday and Sunday as CryptoPunks, ArtBlocks and Bored Ape Yacht Club prices soared.

Updated Sep 14, 2021, 1:34 p.m. Published Aug 2, 2021, 11:38 a.m.
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Markets for digital collectibles known as non-fungible tokens (NFT) have climbed to record highs in trading volume and average prices in the past week, particularly over the weekend.

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  • Trading volume of NFTs on Ethereum reached $171 million, up 338% from the equivalent week in the previous month, OKLink, an OK Group market intelligence subsidiary, told CoinDesk.
  • OpenSea, an NFT marketplace, saw record-breaking trading volume in the past two days. Volume reached $35 million on July 31 and $49 million on Aug. 1 according to on-chain activity monitoring platform DappRadar. Excluding July 31, OpenSea had an average daily trading volume of $8.3 million in July, with a high of $14.4. million on July 17.
Daily trading volume and average prices of NFTs on Ethereum reached record highs over the weekend.
Daily trading volume and average prices of NFTs on Ethereum reached record highs over the weekend.
  • The volume of trading for CryptoPunks reached $78.4 million over the weekend, OKLink said. Today, the average price for CryptoPunks reached a record-high 66.919 ETH ($175,520) on OpenSea.
  • Another collection, ArtBlocks Curated, also saw record average price of 8.1216 ETH ($20,990) on July 31, according to OpenSea data.
  • Average prices for Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) digital collectibles hit an all-time high on OpenSea on Sunday. The average price for one of the 10,000 Bored Ape collectibles was 11.2614 ETH ($29,200), according to platform data.
  • A July 30 article in the New Yorker was published just days before the BAYC community came together at a meetup in Venice Beach, California. The collective also held a simultaneous event on virtual world Decentraland.

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Pudgy Penguins is emerging as one of the strongest NFT-native brands of this cycle, shifting from speculative “digital luxury goods” into a multi-vertical consumer IP platform. Its strategy is to acquire users through mainstream channels first; toys, retail partnerships and viral media, then onboard them into Web3 through games, NFTs and the PENGU token.

The ecosystem now spans phygital products (> $13M retail sales and >1M units sold), games and experiences (Pudgy Party surpassed 500k downloads in two weeks), and a widely distributed token (airdropped to 6M+ wallets). While the market is currently pricing Pudgy at a premium relative to traditional IP peers, sustained success depends on execution across retail expansion, gaming adoption and deeper token utility.

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In its fourth quarter earnings report, Meta said capital spending plans for 2026 should be in the range of $115-$135 billion, well ahead of consensus forecasts.

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