Morning Minute | CryptoPunks Pass $150,000 Floor in Quiet Rally

TylerD's Market Summary

Punks and Pengus are flying, Azuki is updating its vision, and a recent BTC NFT mint was a major disappointment. Catch up on everything below.

📝 NFT Weekend Recap

It was a long holiday weekend in the U.S. for many, and likely a welcome break from days (and weeks) of non-stop ETF talk.

Bitcoin was the hot topic, and then the narrative quickly shifted to ETH, especially as ETH briefly soared to $2,700.

But somewhat overlooked in the crypto hype - some ETH NFTs are making strong local highs.

CryptoPunks have led the way, regaining a $150,000 floor over the weekend without major news or fanfare - just steady buying.

And they weren't the only projects making a splash this weekend.

Azuki Shares Updated Vision

In a major Friday announcement, the team shared their updated focus on 3 pillars:

• Anime: partnership with Goro Taniguchi & Dentsu for the anthology series (coming Q2)
• Physicals: expanding PBTs in-house and via collab
• Gaming: first casual game coming this year featuring Beanz

They also rolled out a new Collector Score incentivizing holding and certain traits/combos.

Sneakily, they buried a new partnership with Fenwick West (a firm known for helping projects pre-token launch) at the end of the thread.

The market broadly shook off the news with Azuki closing the week at 6.8 ETH and down 3%, but still, exciting times ahead.

Pudgy Penguins Reach New ATH

The fat flightless birds may not be flying, but they've been grinding up for months.

Over the weekend, the Pengus hit a 14.2 ETH floor and reached $35,920 - ATHs in both ETH and USD terms.

Lil Pudgys (+20% to 1.25 ETH) and Pudgy Rogs (+27% to 0.7) followed suit.

Oh, and the 640 DYM tokens that each Pudgy owner is getting - those are valued at $2,835. That's enough for another Lil Pudgy for everyone.

A few more surprise airdrops like that for the Pudgy's and they may actually take flight...

Saga Monkes Lead on Solana

The Solana NFT scene has been fairly quiet and uneventful these past few weeks, while its memecoins continue to steal attention.

Except for the Saga Monkes.

The NFTs which were airdropped for free to all Saga phone owners (well 8,888 that had claimed their Genesis tokens) reached a 13.4 SOL floor (now back at 11.4).

That wass over $1,300 at peak and worth 2x the cost of the phone.

With the co-founders both rocking 'em, these seem to have some staying power.

Unless today's Crypto Undeads mint stops everything in its tracks...

Node Monkes Dominate BTC, Shadows Disappoint

The BTC NFT scene has also been mostly quiet and with lower volume over the past week.

But Node Monkes continue to establish their dominance, reclaiming 0.2 BTC over the weekend and reaching ~0.235 at local high (now back at 0.2).

The Shadows sought to take their throne, but their Monday opening was a disappointment (opened at 0.15 BTC and now down 50% from mint at 0.098).

With today's Pizza Ninjas mint now delayed til Thursday, expect more chop and decline until the next major catalyst or inflow event (perhaps Quantum Cats next week)...

ETH NFT Market Overview

Now for a quick look at broader price action on the majors.

Here is a quick rundown of the notable floors (on ETH) and their 7-day price changes:

• Fidenza: 69.42 ETH (-6%)
• CryptoPunks: 58.5 ETH (+10%)
• Ringers: 32 ETH (-10%)
• BAYC: 25.05 ETH (even)
• Pudgy Penguins: 14.19 ETH (+34%)
• Gazers: 10.49 ETH (+5%)
• Grifters: 9 ETH (+2%)
• Chromie Squiggle: 8.1 ETH (+1%)
• Azuki: 6.8 ETH (-2%)
• Winds of Yawanawa: 7.9 ETH (+14%)
• MAYC: 4.45 ETH (-5%)
• Captainz: 4.52 ETH (+10%)
• Otherside Koda: 3.07 ETH (-24%)
• DeGods: 3.03 (-1%)
• Milady: 2.49 ETH (+1%)
• PROOF: 2.1 ETH (-10%)

So it was a mixed week with art largely underperforming and PFPs seeing green. The movers are even more pronounced with ETH +10% on the week.

Pudgys and Punks are the clear winners, with Punks passing $150,000 floor and regaining "unobtainable" status. Pengus continue to march up, +34% on the week to 14.2 ETH and approaching $40,000.

Winds of Yawanawa outperformed in art, now nearing Squiggles in floor price.

Kodas had likely the most disappointing price action, falling back to 3 ETH as faith in Yuga NFTs reaches near-all time lows.

🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• ETH trading volume jumped to $25.6M on Monday after a weekend around $20M/day; leaders saw major green
• Pudgy Penguins led top movers on ETH, popping 10% to 14.2 ETH; LilPudgys (+22%) and Rogs (+27%) soared even more
• NodeMonkes led action on BTC with 200 BTC in trading volume on the week, with the floor settling at 0.195 BTC
• The Shadows started trading and fell 50% from mint price to 0.097 BTC
• Solana NFTs were mixed with Saga Monkes falling 23%, Mad Lads and Tensorians even at 172 and 97, and Quekz +32%
• Ittybitty's were the micro-cap winner of the weekend on ETH, leveraging ETHscription hype and Punks lore to reach a 0.15 ETH floor (from a ~$15 mint)
• Refik Anadol announced his studio's new project the Large Nature Model, touted as the world's first open-source generative AI model focused on nature, and central to his upcoming DATALAND project
• Sotheby's "Natively Digital" Ordinals auctions kicked off on Friday and have seen some major action already, with Des Lucrece's "Benediction from Between Worlds" seeing a $65,000 bid and Quantum Cats Genesis Cat catching a $40k bid
• Solana Saga mobile has apparently shared plans for a V2 phone launch, according to an article published by Coindesk
• Velocity Series passes briefly spiked after the team teased Ordinals and new artists Tyler Hobbs, Emily Xie and more (+70% to 0.53 ETH)
• Roop Rainisto announced a new 5,000 supply NFT drop on Solana, priced at 0.2 SOL each on Jan 30

🌎 Around Crypto and Web3

A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are mixed this morning ahead of trading; BTC 1% at $43,000; ETH even at $2,540; SOL +1.6% at $96.80; alts were down high-single to double digits
• TIA is nearing $20 at $19.29 and SEI jumped 10% on the day to $0.79
• WIF found new local highs near $375M ahead of National Hat Day but
• Jupiter shared it will launch its $JUP token on January 31 at 10:00 a.m. ET
• Rabby wallet announced a snapshot upcoming for users, indicating points or tokens tied to potential airdrop

🚀 NFT Total Volume (ETH)

• MAYC (1,902 ETH, 4.45 ETH Floor)
• Azuki (1,635 ETH, 6.83 ETH)
• Pudgy Penguins (1,483 ETH, 14.19 ETH)
• BAYC (1,404 ETH, 25.05 ETH)
• Lil Pudgys (718 ETH, 1.25 ETH)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)

• Loomlock (76%, 0.65 ETH Floor)
• Full Send Metacard (30%, 0.25 ETH)
• Pudgy Rogs (27%, 0.7 ETH)
• Rug Radio Genesis (23%, 0.13 ETH)
• Checks - VV Edition (21%, 0.69 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals

Today is a huge day of new mints to kickstart the short week.

Crypto Undeads are in the spotlight, with their mega-hyped mint and over-allocated whitelist going live this afternoon. Apparently some presale spots sold for 40 SOL each overnight, so this could see some fireworks.

0xdgb is already back from Swarm and launching Doors, priced at 0.25 ETH each for 400 supply.

And Jeremy Booth is doing an art drop on Solana, 100 NFTs priced at 2 SOL each (with Boots owners getting first grabs).

See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor. 

• Jeremy Booth - High Country (12:00 p.m. ET)
• Simon Lavi - Changing Places (12:00 p.m. ET)
• 0xdgb - Doors (3:00 p.m. ET)
• Crypto Undeads (3:00 p.m. ET)

Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email tyler.warner@luckytrader.co