Bitcoin nonfungible tokens (NFT) sales have exceeded those of Ethereum in the past week, thanks to a surge in Bitcoin Ordinals-based NFT collections, primarily led by the collection NodeMonkes.
In the last seven days, Bitcoin NFT sales have soared by 80% to reach $168.5 million. Interestingly, three out of the top five best-selling NFT collections for the week were based on Bitcoin Ordinals. On the other hand, Ethereum recorded sales of $162 million during the same period, according to data from CryptoSlam!
Despite having only half the number of buyers compared to Ethereum, Bitcoin emerged as the leader in terms of sales for the week. This information is based on data from CryptoSlam!
Ordinals, which was launched in January 2023, enables users to create NFT-like assets by allowing them to insert files, such as images, into satoshis (sats) – the smallest unit of Bitcoin.
The collection that garnered the highest sales was Uncategorized Ordinals, which generated over $43 million from more than 47,000 transactions. Following closely behind was the Bitcoin-based collection NodeMonkes, which recorded sales of over $41 million, marking a nearly 170% increase from the previous week. Natcats, another Ordinals collection, secured the fourth position with over $10 million in sales.
NodeMonkes is a collection of 10,000 unique pixelated profile pictures (PFP) in the style of Ordinals. It was launched in December and claims to be the first 10,000-strong collection on Bitcoin. While other 10,000-count Ordinals collections had debuted earlier, the NodeMonkes team managed to etch their collection onto the blockchain in February 2023, just a month after Ordinals was launched.
In a post on March 2, NFTstats, a user on the platform, revealed that NodeMonkes’ market capitalization had surpassed $500 million, making it the third-largest PFP-style NFT collection across all blockchains, trailing only the Ethereum-based Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC).
The exact reason behind the recent surge in attention for the NodeMonkes collection remains unclear. However, Kevin Wu, the founder of NFT collection GRAYCRAFT, mentioned in a post on Feb. 22 that NodeMonkes possesses “meaningful provenance” as the first PFP-style NFT collection on “the first chain ever.” This unique characteristic could be contributing to its popularity among speculative investors.
DCinvestor, an NFT collector, wonders if NodeMonkes might be the best NFT collection in the world.