NFT Floor Prices Sink Amid Crypto Crash, But Overall Sales On the Rise

The cryptocurrency market is down today—way down—with a 14% drop in overall value over the past 24 hours, including a 16% loss for Bitcoin and an 18% loss for Ethereum.

NFT collections are also feeling the hurt of the battered crypto market, due in part to the falling ETH price. But surprisingly, NFT trading volume has actually risen sharply over the past 24 hours, up 54% over the previous period—suggesting that collectors may be taking advantage of lower prices.

How far are so-called “blue chip” NFT collections falling amid the crypto market downturn? The popular Bored Ape Yacht Club has seen its floor price—or the cost of the cheapest-available NFT listed on a secondary marketplace—drop to nearly $107,000, representing a 16% in the last day when measured in U.S. dollars, per data from NFT Price Floor.

The damage isn’t quite as bad when measured in ETH: the Bored Ape price floor has dropped almost 11% to about 74.5 ETH. Still, the project has lost a huge amount of value over the last month and a half. The cheapest Bored Ape you could buy on April 29 was 152 ETH, or about $429,000 at the time.

Other top collections are falling today, as well. Measured in USD, the Mutant Ape Yacht Club is down 22% to about $20,100 (14 ETH), Moonbirds are down 16% to about $23,250 (16.2 ETH), Doodles have shed nearly 21% of floor value to a current price of $11,650 (8.1 ETH), and Meebits are down 27% to $4,050 (2.8 ETH).

But while it’s pretty much all red on the NFT floor price list today, it’s the opposite for trading volume on CryptoSlam’s list of top NFT projects. Some collectors may be taking advantage of the “cheap ETH” and falling valuations to snap up typically pricey NFTs at lower-than-usual prices.

Overall, according to the crypto analytics site, the NFT market has seen a 54% increase in trading volume over the past 24 hours compared to the previous 24-hour window. The day’s sales total nearly $39 million, which is significantly lower than the daily amount seen as recently as early May, but is an improvement over recent daily trading volume tallies.

The Bored Ape Yacht Club leads the list for trading volume over the past day, with $5.8 million worth of NFT sales. CryptoSlam’s top three is all Bored Ape-related: the Mutant Apes are second with over $2.8 million in NFT trades, with virtual land for the upcoming Otherside metaverse game in third at $2.3 million in trades.

An NFT serves as a deed of ownership to an item, and they’re often used for digital goods such as artwork, profile pictures, and sports and entertainment collectibles.

The NFT market surged to $25 billion in trading volume in 2021, per data from DappRadar, and is still on pace to top that tally this year. Leading marketplace OpenSea actually had its single best day just over one month ago, with $476 million in Ethereum NFT sales on May 1.

However, NFT trading volume fell sharply early last month when crypto prices started to suffer, and the NFT market has continued to struggle since. Even so, DappRadar recently reported that the NFT market appears to be resilient—although the market uncertainty has also led to an array of nihilistic, experimental projects like Goblintown and ShitBeast.

Want to be a crypto expert? Get the best of Decrypt straight to your inbox.

Get the biggest crypto news stories + weekly roundups and more!