NFTs: Are We Back?! 🚀

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Good heavens, the digital dustbins are stirring! It appears someone, somewhere, decided that pixelated apes and strangely-shaped penguins are worth a king’s ransom once more. A rally, you say? A rally? As if the previous…enthusiasm… wasn’t quite embarrassing enough. Investors, those tireless moths to the flickering flame of speculation, are piling in with the predictable fervor of lemmings.

On July 21st, 2025 – a date that will either be remembered as a stroke of digital genius or a collective delusion – the NFT market experienced a… resuscitation. The total market capitalization deigned to increase by over 22% in a single day, climbing from a paltry $5.1 billion to a slightly-less-paltry $6.4 billion. The usual suspects, the ‘blue-chip’ collections (a term I use with a significant amount of irony 😒), like CryptoPunks, Pudgy Penguins, and Moonbirds, led the charge. Naturally.

CryptoPunks, those digital relics of a bygone era, saw their floor price lurch upwards nearly 16% to 47.5 ETH, or roughly $179,000. As if owning a blurry, pixelated face somehow confers status. Pudgy Penguins weren’t far behind, waddling upwards 15% to a floor of 16.75 ETH, around $63,500. Truly, a golden age of digital avian collectibles.

The NFT market cap just pumped 17% in a day from $5.1B to $6.0B.

Which NFTs are you holding?

— CoinGecko (@coingecko) July 21, 2025

Other performers, equally inexplicable, managed even larger gains. Moonbirds and Lil Pudgys, names that sound like a children’s television show, delivered sharp 34% and 17% jumps to 1.94 ETH and 1.78 ETH respectively. The sheer absurdity is… captivating. 🤷‍♀️

This sudden influx of activity caused NFT trading volumes to reach a six-month high. Daily trading shot up 344% to $42.7 million, signaling a return of…something. Momentum, they call it. I call it a temporary reprieve from common sense.

What’s driving this… surge?

Ah, the million-dollar question! Well, it seems a particularly large fish (a “whale,” as they quaintly put it) decided to spend 2,082 ETH (around $5.7 million) on 45 CryptoPunks within a few hours. A display of economic prudence, surely. This, naturally, sent the floor price climbing and sparked a ripple of excitement through the market. The power of conspicuous consumption, ladies and gentlemen!

A whale created a new wallet(0x1bb3) and spent 2,082 $ETH($5.87M) to buy 45 CryptoPunk NFTs 4 hours ago.

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) July 21, 2025

Of course, the broader crypto market is also experiencing a… lift. Ethereum (ETH) is trading over $3,800, and Bitcoin (BTC) is hovering above $119,000. It’s all terribly interconnected, you see. A house of cards built on optimism and the unwavering belief that something inherently valueless will suddenly become… valuable.

Market watchers are already declaring “NFT season” – a phrase that feels both triumphant and faintly pathetic. One X user, Chris Taylor, proclaimed this as the start of a “NFT bull market.” Jason Yanowitz, co-founder of Blockworks, added that NFTs are moving “like there are NFT treasury vehicles on the horizon.” Oh, the metaphors! 🎭

Despite this brief moment of exuberance, the NFT market remains a shadow of its former glory. Active NFT buyers are still down 52%, and global transactions have dropped 11.6%. Whether this is a genuine comeback or merely a fleeting spasm remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: the show will go on. And it will likely be just as bewildering as ever. 🤡

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2025-07-21 12:10