CryptoPunk, Bored Ape sell for over $1 million each as NFT market recovers

The NFT market is will pick up speed again in 2023, as rising sales and trading volume data showed in January. Now there have been two more prominent signs of a rebound in the last 24 hours, as a single Ethereum NFTs from the popular ones CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club projects sold for more than 1 million dollars in ETH.

Both sales came from prominent collectors and creators in the NFT world, and they also mark the two largest single NFT sales tracked by CryptoSlam the last 30 days.

CryptoPunk #5066 was sold on Monday for 857 ETH, or $1.4 million worth at the time. It was sold by Kevin Rose co-founder of NFT startup Proof (Moonbirds) as well as a venture capitalist, serial entrepreneur and well-known NFT collector. The buyer is unknown, although the NFT was transferred to another wallet marked bitshamed.eth shortly after the purchase.

Rose recently fell victim to a phishing attack which saw him unwittingly transfer 40 NFTs worth a total of more than $1 million – inclusive Art blocks and Autoglyphs pieces – to an attacker. He said afterwards that he is selling some assets in an attempt to rebalance his portfolio and acquire more Art Blocks Squiggles NFTs after losing 25 of them in the attack.

Meanwhile, Bored Ape Yacht Club #7090 sold for 800 ETH today, or $1.3 million. Ranked as the 62nd rarest NFT in the collection of 10,000 pieces of Rarity tool, NFT was sold by Web3 creator and collector Jimmy “j1mmy” McNelis to an unidentified buyer. McNelis owns the NFTs behind Universal Music Group’s Bored Ape virtual band, Kingship, and also created the early Avastars project.

An NFT is a blockchain token that can serve as proof of ownership for an item, including digital goods such as artwork, PFPs, collectibles, and video game items. The NFT market gave way organic trading volume worth around $25 billion in 2021 and again in 2022.

The sale points to continued momentum for the NFT industry after a significant increase in activity back to the end of 2022. The market started last year with record trading volume, but sales and prices fell sharply during the summer and into the fall when crypto prices fell and industrial contagion grabbed.

However, total month-over-month organic NFT trading volume edged up slightly in December, per data from DappRadar, and then rose in January. Sales volume rose 38% to nearly $947 million in January, according to the research firm, while the total number of NFTs sold during the month rose 42% to 9.5 million.

Bored Ape Yacht Club and associated gatherings drove much of the market-wide bump in January, due to the launch of Yuga Labs’ Dookey Dash online game and Sewer Pass NFTs.

According to CryptoSlam, NFT sales on Ethereum in the last seven days alone topped $209 million worth of ETH – an increase of nearly 15% compared to last week.