Bitcoin Ordinals Boom Yields Record $1 Million NodeMonkes Sale

Ordinals—the Bitcoin equivalent of NFTs—are on fire as Bitcoin’s price nears an all-time high, and it’s the NodeMonkes collection that is leading the charge after a heavy sales weekend that culminated with the project’s first-ever sale above $1 million worth of BTC.

NodeMonkes is the top-selling individual Ordinals or NFT project over the last seven days, according to data from CryptoSlam, with nearly $45 million worth of secondary market sales during that span.

Over the last 24 hours, only Ethereum NFT project CryptoPunks beats NodeMonkes, thanks to today’s $16 million sale of a single CryptoPunk. Even so, NodeMonkes has piled up about $11.7 million worth of sales during the last day, led by that seven-figure trade.

The “Alien Hoodie” NodeMonke (#2769) sold for 17 Bitcoin early Monday on Magic Eden, or $1.08 million worth at the time. It’s the largest NodeMonke sale to date, and appears to be the second-highest Ordinals sale ever. Last week, the second Ordinals inscription ever made on Bitcoin sold for $1.4 million worth of BTC.

The price of NodeMonkes has skyrocketed in recent weeks as demand for Bitcoin Ordinals ramps up as the leading cryptocurrency itself surges in price.

NodeMonkes started at a price of 0.18 BTC (about $9,300 at the time) two weeks ago, on February 19. Now the cheapest listed NodeMonke on leading marketplace Magic Eden is listed at 0.82 BTC, or nearly $54,400 worth. That puts it near the entry price of leading Ethereum NFT projects like the Bored Ape Yacht Club ($67,000) and Pudgy Penguins ($57,100).

Bitcoin surged above a price of $67,000 on Monday morning, coming closer to its all-time high price ($69,044) than it has since late 2021.

Over the last week, CryptoSlam reports that total Ethereum NFT and Bitcoin Ordinals sales volume is nearly even, with $177.4 million worth for Ethereum and $176.4 million for Ordinals. However, CryptoSlam also tracks the sale of Bitcoin’s BRC-20 tokens—akin to fungible tokens on Ethereum—in that total, so they’re not perfectly comparable stats.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.