NFT Market Defies Crypto Downturn with Strong Weekly Performance
I’ve been watching the NFT space closely, and this week’s numbers are genuinely surprising. While Bitcoin dropped to around $89,000 and Ethereum slipped below $3,000, the NFT market actually posted some impressive gains. The total crypto market cap fell from $3.22 trillion to $3.02 trillion, but NFTs seemed to move in their own direction.
Weekly sales volume hit $122.5 million, which is more than double the previous week’s figure. That’s a 101.61% increase, if we’re being precise. What’s interesting is that both buyers and sellers increased significantly too—buyers up 38.75% to 187,288, and sellers jumping 47.19% to 164,685. Transaction volume grew more modestly at 7.99%, reaching 702,526 trades.
Ethereum Dominates Blockchain Rankings
Ethereum really stood out this week. The network recorded $77.57 million in NFT sales, which represents a massive 179.42% increase from the previous period. That’s quite a jump. Ethereum attracted 23,994 buyers, up 38.03%, though there was some wash trading activity totaling $4.63 million.
Bitcoin took second place with $21.66 million in sales, soaring 126.61% week-over-week. The Bitcoin network drew 8,333 buyers, which is a 60.71% increase. BNB Chain ranked third with $7.52 million in sales, though interestingly, this actually represented a 3.20% decline despite buyer activity rising 68.29% to 24,784.
Immutable dropped to fourth position with $3.70 million in sales, down 10.98%, while Base claimed fifth with $3.55 million, climbing 88.69%. Solana rounded out the top six with $3.32 million in sales, posting an 8.85% gain and attracting 30,235 buyers—that’s an 84.73% increase from last week.
Collections Show Mixed Performance
The collection rankings tell an interesting story. Flying Tulip PUT on Ethereum dominated with $51.57 million in sales, though its performance was essentially flat week-over-week. The collection processed 2,103 transactions from 1,516 buyers.
$X@AI BRC-20 NFTs on Bitcoin claimed second place with $15.71 million in sales, surging an incredible 687.41% over the week. What’s remarkable here is that this collection completed just nine transactions from seven buyers—suggesting some very high-value individual sales.
YES BOND on BNB Chain landed in third with $4.18 million in sales, climbing 28.15%. CryptoPunks took fourth position with $4.01 million in sales, recovering 46.74% after last week’s 23.81% decline. That’s a modest but noticeable recovery for one of the NFT market’s most watched collections.
Guild of Guardians Heroes posted $2.31 million in sales, up 7.41%, while Moonbirds recorded $1.91 million with a 69.75% surge. Pudgy Penguins rounded out the top seven with $1.82 million in sales, down 4.72%.
Record-Breaking Individual Sales
The week’s highest-value sale was truly remarkable. A $X@AI BRC-20 NFT on Bitcoin sold for $13.73 million, which translates to 153.5837 BTC. This sale happened just one day ago and shattered previous records.
Two additional $X@AI pieces followed, fetching $1.01 million (11.2771 BTC) two days ago and $895,348 (10.0001 BTC) three days ago. CryptoPunks claimed two spots among the top five individual sales, which perhaps indicates renewed interest in some of the more established NFT projects.
Looking at these numbers, I think what’s interesting is how the NFT market seems to be developing its own rhythm, somewhat independent of broader crypto market movements. The recovery in CryptoPunks, while modest at around 25%, might signal something about collector sentiment shifting back toward blue-chip projects. But it’s still early to tell if this trend will hold.
