Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT prices fall after FTX lowers crypto market

Crypto prices are down across the board this week amidst news of FTX’s liquidity crisis and alleged mismanagement of customer funds – and the market turmoil can extend into NFT the world too. Popular Ethereum project Bored Ape Yacht Club see falling prices as ETH falls and owners potentially panic sell their valuable NFTs.

According to data from NFT Price Floor, the cheapest available Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT on the market (i.e. the “floor price”) is listed for 57.5 ETH at the time of writing, or approximately $76,400. Measured in ETH, that’s a 7% drop over the last 24 hours. But in USD terms, given the declining value of ETH (which is down 13% this week), it has fallen almost 24% in the last 24 hours.

Based on the current price, in USD, the floor price of a Bored Ape has fallen since then peak at nearly $429,000 (152 ETH) on April 29 earlier this year, ahead of the launch of virtual land NFT documents for creator Yuga Labs’ Otherside metaverse game. This is a decrease of 82%.

After recently driving neck-and-neck in terms of floor price with CryptoPunksanother valuable Ethereum NFT collection (also now owned by Yuga Labs), the Monkeys have lost their momentum.

As of this writing, the floor price for one CryptoPunk is up 6% (in ETH) in the last 24 hours to 66.75 ETH, or about $88,700. Amid the renewed market struggles, some investors may see CryptoPunks as more durable assets that will hold value better than other NFTs, given their status as an influential, enduring project as of 2017.

An NFT is a blockchain token that can be used to represent ownership in an item, including things like Profile pictures (PFP), works of art and collectibles. Bored Ape Yacht Club is a popular PFP collection that spans over 10,000 unique images and has provided almost 2.5 billion dollars value of secondary market trades since the launch in April 2021.

There are a couple of potential factors that could push Bored Ape prices down this week. One is the general despondency in the crypto market amid the FTX collapse, which may prompt some investors to offload their blue chip NFT holdings amid the downturn. Interestingly, there is evidence on the chain that suggests such action.

Data collected by Flipside Crypto and divided by Proof Research director Punk9059 shows Wednesday a significant increase i deals on the leading marketplace Open sea uses Wrapped Ethereum (WETH) instead of standard ETH. The proportion of WETH trades rose this week, jumping above the 50% mark late Wednesday afternoon.

Why is it important? Placing a bid for an NFT on OpenSea requires WETH, so when this number rises, it means more NFT owners are accepting bids placed on their holdings. Bids are typically below the market value of any NFT, so the figure suggests that sellers are taking low bids to quickly liquidate their NFTs amid the market chaos.

Another element related to the decline in the crypto market concerns BendDAO, a lending protocol that allows users to take out crypto loans using valuable NFTs as collateral. Currently, BendDAO is auctioning off 14 Bored Ape NFTs from liquidated loans, with today’s bids for all well below the floor price on large marketplaces. This may indicate weak demand for the assets.

In August, BendDAO itself faced a significant liquidity crisis when it ran out of ETH and did not receive high enough bids to auction the NFTs seized from liquidated loans. In the end, the protocol’s members voted to lower the liquidation threshold so that it is easier for BendDAO to auction off the NFTs for underwater loans.