Mutant Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks Among This Week’s Record NFT Sales
- NFT collateral lending has become a popular funding tool for blue chip NFT holders
- Sales of rare MAYC and Ape Punk NFTs prove Yuga Labs’ market dominance
The NFT ecosystem has slowed in terms of monthly trading volumes since May’s crypto market center stage, and especially compared to the all-time highs of January this year.
However, this week in particular saw significant trading activity, and Wednesday takes the cake for the highest daily volume of NFT sales, measured in Ether (ETH), in September and the last 30 days.
On September 28, 12,565 ETH, or $16.6 million, were traded that day. While September 20 recorded a lower volume amount in ETH – 12,549 ETH – the USD amount was $17 million higher due to the fluctuating price of Ether.
This week’s peak can likely be attributed to a $16.75 million generative art sale, a $1.3 million Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) loan deal, and a $4.45 million CryptoPunks sale.
Tyler Hobbs, creator of the popular Fidenza project on Art Blocks, and Archipelago founder Dandelion Wist released mint passes for their new collection, QQL, dropped via a Dutch auction on Wednesday.
This generative art experiment sold off 900 coin cards using a discount mechanism so that all buyers ended up paying the same price when it was settled. While the auction ended at 14 ETH, the QQL project raised around 12,600 ETH, or roughly $16.7 million.
Claiming it “empowers the collector as co-creator”, QQL pass holders can use the algorithm to choose the outcome of the on-chain art they create.
Many QQL collectors may already be collectors of other generative artworks or of Hobbs’ Fidenzas, a collection that recently saw a holder scoop up seven NFTs worth $912,741 within 24 hours.
The success of generative art NFTs has contributed to the growth of the NFT art sector, and the Art Blocks NFT platform is at the forefront thanks to collections such as Fidenza, Chromie Squiggles and Ringers, to name a few.
Art Blocks, which is approaching its second anniversary in November, is also known for its curated collections consisting of a variety of projects that individual artists or collaborations can submit to.
The eighth and final series will also be the “last of its kind”, Art Blocks announced this week. Any future curated projects will not belong to a numbered series.
Mega Mutant Apes Collateral Loan
A mega NFT lending deal made a big bet on Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFTs.
Fragment – a company that “creates rich stories and worlds for the metaverse”, according to its Twitter – took out a loan of 1,000 ETH, worth about $1.3 million, via NFT lending platform Arcade on Tuesday to buy Mega Noise, one of the rarest NFTs in the MAYC collection.
The collateral is two other Mega Mutant Apes – Mega Electric and Mega Swamp – which Fragment will lose if it doesn’t repay the loan within 90 days.
Nexo acted as the originator of the loan, financing it through Arcade, while the Meta 4 NFT Lending Fund sourced and structured it as the guarantor of the loan, assuming liability in the event of borrower default.
“This kind of activity is significant, not only because of the sticker shock of the assets, but because it’s a really great example of tokenized finance — where we operate at the intersection of DeFi and NFT,” Brandon Buchanan, Meta4’s founder and managing partner, told Blockworks .
“Deals like this come with a lot of complexity because you’re valuing assets with little transaction history or comparables,” Buchanan added. “You want to be sure that custody solutions are safe, and need alternative forms of financing from sources that can tolerate the perceived risk.”
This purchase of Mega Noise increases Fragment’s Mega Mutant count to five NFTs. Only a dozen or so Mega Mutant Apes exist, spun out of the Bored Ape Yacht Club using “mutant serum.”
Weird Ape CryptoPunk
Daniel Maegaard, aka seedphgrase.eth, sold his rare Ape CryptoPunks NFT for 3300 ETH, or $4.28 million, to an unknown buyer.
That makes it the highest ETH value for a non-alien punk in history. It is also the fourth highest Punks sale of all time and the second highest sale of 2022 after another Ape Punk sold for 2,501 ETH, or $7.8 million, in February.
CryptoPunks is one of the OG NFT projects and it continues to show massive interest and big sales, especially since the $12.5 million sale of luxury jewelry with Tiffany’s & Co.
CryptoPunks and MAYC collections operate under parent company Yuga Labs, which was valued at $4 billion in March – the largest valuation of an NFT company to date.
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Ornella Hernandez
Blockwork
Journalist
