Once so hot NFT collections come along with cryptocurrencies
Once-hot NFT collections, including the celebrity-backed Bored Ape Yacht Club and the CryptoPunk series, have merged with cryptocurrencies and the stock market, leaving many digital collectibles deep in the hole.
The Bored Ape Yacht Club series – which has been backed by celebrities including Tom Brady, Madonna, Jimmy Fallon and Future – has seen its value fall in recent months as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates and the economy is pressured by inflation.
The “price floor” for Bored Apes – a measure of the lowest price estimate for NFTs in the collection – has collapsed 75% from more than $ 400,000 as late as April to less than $ 100,000 on Tuesday, according to data from tracker NFTpricefloor.com.
This is a larger decline than bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, which has fallen by around 55% since 1 April.
CryptoPunk’s NFTs meanwhile fell 66% from $ 230,000 at some point in April to less than $ 78,000 on Tuesday, according to the website.
Total transaction volume in the NFT market has also collapsed. There have been $ 650 million in NFT sales so far in June, compared to $ 3.7 billion in April and $ 3 billion in May, according to data from industry website CryptoSlam.
Despite the gloomy market, crowds of NFT fanatics are coming to Manhattan this week for a massive series of events celebrating the digital collectibles.
The NFT.NYC conference, which started on Tuesday and lasts until Thursday, has seen NFT fans put on brave faces as they commute between network sessions and panels in arenas such as Radio City Music Hall.
Last year’s event in November 2021 came when Ethereum and Solana – the primary cryptocurrencies used to trade NFTs – reached all-time highs. It also attracted celebrities like Quentin Tarantino and Logan Paul. Musical acts included top rapper Lil Baby and New York rock legends The Strokes performed at a Bored Ape party during the conference.
This year’s conference, on the other hand, is overshadowed by the market downturn and appears to contain fewer A-list stars. The biggest names announced this year are rappers French Montana and Jim Jones, who spoke with record industry leaders at Radio City Music Hall on Tuesday. Dance DJ Deadmau5 was to perform at an NFT event at a nightclub in Bushwick, Brooklyn, Tuesday night.
General admission tickets to the conference cost between $ 600 and $ 850, while VIP passes went for as much as $ 2,000. The organizers say that 15,000 people attend the conference.
In May, The Post reported that high-profile NFT auctions were increasingly flopped. An auction of three works by Madonna and Beeple – which auctioned off an NFT for a record $ 69 million in 2021 – sold for just $ 135,000, $ 146,000 and $ 346,000.
In another dramatic example, plans to sell an NFT by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s first tweet, which had previously sold for $ 2.9 million, were shelved in April after the highest bid came in below $ 14,000.
Nick Rose, founder and CEO of the NFT platform Ethernity Chain, told The Post at the time that NFTs were selling at “unexpectedly low” prices.
“NFTs inflated when stimulus checks came in, but they grew too fast,” Rose said
– Additional reporting by Lydia Moynihan
