Key Takeaways
- The floor prices of high-value NFTs have declined in February.
- Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs have fallen almost 30%, and CryptoPunks are down 24% over the past month.
- Despite high-value collections falling in value, interest in newer, less-expensive collections still appears strong.
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The floor prices of top NFT collections are trending lower, with notable collections such as Bored Ape Yacht Club down almost 30% over the past month.
NFT Mania Starts to Subside
The recent hype surrounding high-value NFTs may be cooling off.
The floor prices of top collections such as Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks have fallen lower in February, despite a strong start to the year.
Of all the major NFT projects, Bored Ape Yacht Club appears to have been hit the hardest during the recent NFT downturn. At the start of the month, the cheapest Bored Ape NFTs would have set buyers back over 118 ETH, around $320,000 at today’s prices. A combination of celebrity purchases and rumors that the NFT apes would appear in the Super Bowl LVI halftime show saw prices for Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs soar to new highs.
Unfortunately for NFT enthusiasts, as millions tuned in to watch this year’s Super Bowl on Feb.13, there wasn’t a Bored Ape in sight. The premier primate NFTs look set to end February down almost 30% from their all-time high floor price.
While Bored Apes appear to be retracting after missed expectations, another top collection is extending previous losses. CryptoPunks, one of the first NFT collections created on Ethereum, has seen the floor price for its pixel character avatars drop significantly over the past six months.
In August 2021, after financial services giant Visa had revealed it bought a CryptoPunk, the collection’s floor price stood at 122.5 ETH, or around $333,000. However, after several turbulent months and a lack of engagement from the project’s creators, the lowest-priced CryptoPunks now sit at 63.44 ETH. February alone saw the Punk floor price fall from 84 ETH, a loss of 24% on the month.
Despite these high-value collections falling in value, interest in newer, less expensive collections still appears strong. Notable releases such as Azuki and mfers have quickly solidified their position as some of the most traded NFTs in recent weeks. More generally, trading volumes on the top NFT marketplace OpenSea remain high, regularly exceeding $100 million daily.
However, whether collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks will be able to maintain their high valuations is not yet clear. Some skeptics in the crypto community believe that the current valuations are unsustainable. The NFT collector Keyboard Monkey recently tweeted their disbelief in the project’s current value, stating:
“Pretty much ready to bet my life a membership to the bored ape yacht club will cost less than 20 eth within a year… idk tho!”
CryptoPunks creator Larva Labs has also come under fire for taking a hard stance against CryptoPunks copycats and recently took controversial action against V1 Punks born out of the original CryptoPunks smart contract.
On the other hand, promises of a Bored Ape Yacht Club game and fungible token from the collection’s creator Yuga Labs, along with rumored investment from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, have led speculators to buy up Bored Ape NFTs in anticipation of higher values. Additionally, Larva Labs has signed a deal with United Talent Agency, allowing the CryptoPunks’ IP to be used in film, TV, video games, and other media.
Whichever way prices trend, 2022 is set to be a defining year for these high-value NFT collections.
Disclosure: At the time of writing this piece, the author owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.
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