For the Love of the Game (Market Commentary) |
What a difference a few
days can make. Last week, the crypto market was spooked by news that China is selling its Bitcoin ($1.3B worth, and still sitting on roughly $16B). The trade war has markets even more concerned this week, with more tough language from
both Trump and China.
Now, traders are flocking to gold, sending it to higher all-time highs, but this time BTC is climbing right with
it. As of this morning, Bitcoin reached as high as $91,261, and with global M2 climbing to a new high, we have the perfect setup for a red-hot few months.
It’s about to get exciting in crypto and NFTs again, but as you know, there’s always something buzzworthy happening in Web3.
Let’s get into some of the top stories from the past week. The Base blockchain kicked off a token minting frenzy when the blockchain’s founder started sharing “content coins” created on Zora. A heated debate took over X with some traders disliking the further dilution of traders’ liquidity, and more
thinking this was a publicity stunt ahead of Zora’s TGE this week. - Jesse Pollak, creator of Base, first launched a token called Base is for everyone, which climbed to
nearly $20M MC before crashing to under $2M.
- Pump.Fun founder Alon weighed in, saying that the timing is wrong to “tokenize
everything”.
- Base defended its posting after heated backlash, saying it believes all content should come
on-chain.
- Content coin mints are taking place on Zora, which has its TGE this
Wednesday.
Take notice of the NFTs that are moving this week, because they tell us that traders are stocking up on premium collectibles before they get out of reach. Or in other words, traders think a run is coming. - CryptoPunk #741, a rare 1-trait punk, sold for 317 ETH ($500K). While the seller saw 47 ETH in profit,
they also have an unrealized $292K in USD losses.
- Telegram NFT stickers are selling on secondary markets and OTC, including a massive $4K Cool Blue Pengu #1 sale (Pudgy Penguins stickers on Telegram). We also saw Pudgy stickers sell for $1.3K and $1K, and some Bored Ape stickers sell for $2.3K.
- Art continues to be a big ticket item in NFTs, and this week we saw Alpha Centauri Kid’s Happiest Place on Earth sell for 40 ETH ($63.6K), XCOPY REMNANT #1 sell for 38.84 ETH ($62.9K), and Gobble for 30 ETH ($47.2K).
Magic Money from Magic Eden Magic Eden finished Season 1 of their farming campaign with a big ME token drop to their stakers and quest participants. - Multiple traders reported receiving thousands in ME tokens, significantly more than they had even
staked.
- Season 1 of ME farming is now over, and Season 2 has officially kicked off. It will involve staking and
quests in the form of trading/collecting NFTs and fungible tokens.
- There was backlash over the Season 1 rewards as some traders received small rewards for staking,
while others received a massive payday.
- The AI crypto market is up +5.6% over the past 7d to a $6.41B market cap.
- Virtuals launched their Genesis token launch platform, replacing VaderAI’s Early Agent
Offerings.
- VaderAI completed their 3rd and final Early Agent Offering with Wakehacker selling out in just a few
hours.
- ElizaOS’ auto.fun token launchpad is now live with token-gated chats, AI agents/content, and vanity
addresses.
- The first Genesis launch on Virtuals called h011lw00d saw a 13x from its initial launch
price.
- HeyAnon will be integrated into Radium’s new memecoin launchpad.
- Virtuals first Hackathon has come to an end with Solace winning the #1 spot, while multiple new
agents found homes in upcoming ACP swarms.
- OpenAI released 2 new models, o3 and o-4, along with a new locally run Codex
CLI.
- The Agentic Software Engineer Kolwaii has officially migrated to Virtuals on
Base.
- Anthropic released their latest research report, focused on AI’s expression of its pre-programmed
values.
- Courtyard is again the #1 NFT collection, with sales up +25.74% to $20.56M.
Buyers climbed +73.57% to 13,912.
- DMarket sales fell -5.75% to $9.26M, with buyers down 0.61% to 21,690.
- CryptoPunks sales fell -75.07% to $2.21M, and buyers were down -40% to 15.
- Pudgy Penguins sales are down -39.27% to $989K, and sellers fell -39.19% to 45. The top sale was Pudgy Penguin #5119, which sold for 14 ETH ($22.53K).
- Sorare sales are up +6.99% to $882K, with buyers up +0.85% to 13,401.
- Polygon is the top blockchain by NFT sales volume, thanks to the massive sales from Courtyard NFTs. Blockchain sales are up +21.82% to $22.13M, with
buyers up +96.94% to 36,400.
- Ethereum sales fell -28.90% to $20.93M, though buyers climbed +38.18% to 35,334.
- Mythos Chain sales fell -4.05% to $14.41M with buyers up +75.27% to 37,245.
- Bitcoin sales are down -17.20% to $14.2M with buyers up +112.91% to 18,481.
- Solana sales are up +22.87% to $7.13M, and buyers are up +102.33% to 60,496.
- NFT sales came in at the 2nd lowest total of 2025 with $90.87M in sales.
- Wash sales hit a new 2025 low with just $2.7M.
- Unique sellers and buyers both rebounded from their year lows last week, while transactions hit a 3-week high.
- Trade profits came in at their highest level in 13 weeks, though still in the negative at -$5.51M.
The CryptoSlam 500 NFT Index is up +7.63% this week, reflecting an NFT market that may be entering a new phase. Crypto is up, boosting collection prices in USD value,
but traders are keenly aware that in native token value, prices have stabilized or climbed. If crypto continues to move up, expect to see traders shift those wins into NFTs, and prices to continue rising. ETH NFT Composite - 511.18 (-1.90%)
SOL NFT Composite - 508.74
(+0.51%)
POL NFT Composite - 3.78 (-12.50%)
CAR NFT Composite - 440.01 (-6.04%) Crypto may be in its comeback arc, one that was predicted to happen if you believe global money supply is a leading indicator. Global M2 continues to climb higher into ATH territory, and if you combine that with uncertainty in most other assets,
crypto (specifically Bitcoin) is suddenly looking like it’s one of the best bets out there. Top Gainers 7d TAO - $339.56 (+44.6%)
FET - $0.623
(+25.7%)
STX - $0.7185 (+19.0%)
HYPE - $17.94 (+13.1%)
IMX - $0.472 (+12.2%) Top Losers 7d
PI - $0.6343 (-14.5%)
S - $0.4557 (-8.7%)
IP - $3.71 (-6.2%)
BONK - $0.00001241 (-4.7%)
KCS - $9.86 (-4.7%) Cash Grabbers
Date - April 22
Blockchain -
Solana
Price - .69 SOL
Bitcoin Bro Bear
Date - April 22
Blockchain - Bitcoin
Price - .00001
BTC GORD: Dark Age Date - April 22
Blockchain - Bitcoin
Price - 0.00075 BTC Berathoon Date - April 22
Blockchain - Berachain
Price - 5.36 BERA |
A content coin is a fungible token minted around a single piece of online content. Think of it as turning a meme, tweet, image, or video into its own micro‑currency that anyone can trade; unlike an NFT’s 1‑of‑1 scarcity, every holder owns
interchangeable units, so price becomes a real‑time popularity gauge and creators can tap immediate, on‑chain liquidity from their audience. Received this from a friend? Sign up for this CryptoSlam VIP newsletter. |
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