For the Love of the Game

(Market Commentary)

The past week was dominated by politics and policies, with the crypto community awaiting CPI readings in the US, and online events from Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Some good news arrived as inflation dropped to 2.9%, marking the first time CPI has been below 3% since 2021. Despite the positive numbers, the crypto market has remained almost stagnant. Right now BTC hovers just under $59K, ETH at $2,600, and Solana at $143, with slight declines across the board on the 7d—BTC down 0.9%, ETH down 2.7%, and Solana down 2.8%.

The real action last week was in the political arena when Donald Trump made headlines with his return to X for a live interview with Elon Musk. Not once in his nearly 3 hour Spaces did he mention bitcoin or crypto, and yet crypto still managed to be the main focus of the event.

Prediction markets on the blockchain have become one of the hottest new products of this cycle, and during Trump’s speech, traders focused their crypto bets on what he wouldn’t or would not say. The big winner? Tampon.

Source

Meanwhile, the Crypto 4 Kamala live stream featured one major moment when Chuck Schumer mentioned that the Democrats intend to pass sensible crypto legislation before the year’s end. Yesterday the Democrats released their official party platform, and similar to Trump’s X interview, crypto wasn’t mentioned. The future for crypto regulations, unfortunately, remains as unclear as ever.

Maybe we’ll have more clarity on the NFT side? After all, the community has declared NFTs are back.

Let’s start with the market itself, which saw another rough 7d of trading action, with volume falling for the fourth week in a row. Cross-chain sales fell 9.25% to $77.4M, unique sellers were up 0.52%, buyers fell 9.66%, and transactions decreased by 11.09%, though trade profits did climb 78.53% to -$6.3M. 

Source

Just this week we saw the iconic CryptoPunk #5822 change hands in a private sale for an undisclosed amount. This Punk last sold for 8,000 ETH ($23.2M), and was rumored to have been sold this time for 2,330 ETH ($6M). That’s a massive $17M loss in just a few years. If NFTs are back, they’re back in a much different form. Cheaper, and with a community that needs to reset their expectations.

Ultimately, the CryptoSlam 500 NFT Index will tell us when we’re back, and that moment is when the 24h, 7d, and 30d charts show that the value of the market is up. Right now, the index shows the market down 5.8% in the past 30d.

Source

So, are NFTs back? I’ll leave that question open for now.

Peep the charts

• DMarket is again on top of the NFT markets, even with sales falling 46.48%. Buyers and sellers fell a similar amount at 41.77% and 41.60%.

• CryptoPunks had a massive week, with 33 CryptoPunks sales in the top 50 NFT sales this week. With all of that extra volume, the collection’s floor price is on fire, now up 21.2% to 26.49 ETH. 

• Bored Ape Yacht Club also had a big week of sales, with 75.79% more volume than the prior week, and their floor rocketing up 21.3% to 11.97 ETH.

• Sorare kicked off their 2024-25 fantasy season last Friday and saw sales come in at $3.1M on the week. 

• Ordinals are seeing a resurgence, with sales up 373.30% to $3.1M thanks to collections like Bitcoin Puppets and NodeMonkes finding support for their falling prices.

• Ethereum is still cooking as the top NFT ecosystem on the blockchain. Sales are up 29.92% to $31.35M with buyers climbing 29.25%.

• Solana saw $18.1M in sales while buyers soared 115.66%. Still the ecosystem is lacking quality NFT collections compared to Ethereum, but most are hoping this narrative becomes a thing of the past after this cycle.

• Bitcoin sales are down 0.23% while seeing the largest increase in buyers across the top 5 blockchains. Buyers are up 131.08%, thanks to new mints, cheap grails, and general bullishness around Bitcoin.

Noteworthy Happenings

• Doodles remain one of the most important stories in NFTs and this week is no different. The Doodles dropped their official music video for Coi Leray’s Not in the Store, and dropped hot Doodles x Adidas collectible NFTs. Doodles saw $351K in sales, up 18.84% from the prior week.

• FTW on Bitcoin was one of the week’s most noteworthy new mints that found success on secondary markets. Domo Ducks on Bitcoin also saw great secondary thanks to speculation that their holders would receive a token airdrop in the upcoming Fractals ecosystem. Domo Ducks saw $267K in sales, while FTW came in at $263K.

• Unicornio was another of the week’s hottest new mints, with this on representing the best of Solana with their $UWU token, on top of their NFT collection. In total, the Unicornio collection saw $1.34M in sales and has climbed to the #14 spot on the NFT Collection Rankings.

NFT forecast

The CryptoSlam 500 NFT Index reflects another 1.75% decline for the NFT market this week, again shining light on the fact that NFTs are not back. That doesn’t mean that certain areas of the NFT market aren’t seeing a resurgence, like Ethereum, which actually is up 2.12% this week. Solana is also in the green, with its ecosystem up .06%. 

We’re inching closer to the return of the macro NFTs market, however, and our almost standard crypto “Uptober”, is now just 6 short weeks away. 

Be smart and keep your finger on the pulse of this market, by keeping your eyes on CryptoSlam and the indexes. You can stay plugged in by fixing your vision on our new daily Web3 live show called Chain Reactor.

Have a MEGA GM!

— Yehudah Petscher

News Headlines

• Yuga Labs is back in court again as the 9th Circuit Court hears appeal on $9m judgement.

• Metastreet reveals new product to fractionalize NFTs’ airdrops.

• Aavegotchi’s new L3 called Geist will live on the Arbitrum blockchain.

• Prediction markets are growing on the blockchain with Drift on Solana. 

• Solana ETFs face a challenge as SEC might still view $SOL as a security. 

• Rekt Drinks offers Rekt points for community created content. 

• Adidas and CyberKongz team up for an exclusive line of merch. 

• Pump Fun scammer reveals how he made $200k on memecoins

Upcoming Drops

Yokai by Sabet - Tokyo Punks
Date - Aug 21
Blockchain - Base
Price - .0058 ETH

Far x Harto - Brutal Edge
Date - Aug 21
Blockchain - Bitcoin
Price - .0009 BTC

Gomble Games - OG Spaceship Boarding Pass
Date - Aug 21
Blockchain - Base
Price - .001 ETH

XProtocol - Genesis Pass
Date - Aug 22
Blockchain - Base
Price - Free