Morning Minute | Pudgy Penguins Break $100k Barrier, NFTs Soar
TylerD's Market Summary
💰 Pudgy's Are $100k, Spark NFT Revival
This past week has been the most important week for NFTs in several years.
The combination of last week's PENGU token announcement for Pudgy Penguin holders combined with the Magic Eden airdrop has seen the NFT market into a frenzy.
And the mania seems to be just beginning.
What Happened?
The entire NFT leaderboard was washed in green overnight.
Notable movers:
- Pudgy's up another 10% to 27.3 ETH ($107,000)
- Bored Apes up 13% to 19.6 ETH, Mutants up 23% to 3.5
- Azuki up 33% to 9.3 ETH (new local high) with Elementals (+47%) and Beanz (+55%)
- Doodles +84% to 4.6 ETH and a smashing new local high
All while ETH is up 5% to $3,930.
That means the USD values of the NFTs are up even more.
Truly a glorious sight to see on this Thursday morning, for the NFT believers and enthusiasts.
Total trading volume on the week is up to $155M, the highest its been since March 2024 - but that's not even a good comp because of all the Blur farming.
These buys feel much more organic.
Why It Matters
Many thought that this crypto cycle would play out with the coins running first and NFTs last.
My mental model was that NFTs would have their time in Q4 2025.
I was off by a year.
The explosion in wealth creation in the post-Trump Election crypto world has almost immediately found its way to NFTs.
A few things are happening:
- Traders are hitting big wins and rotating gains to "safer" assets like NFTs (i.e. Punks) to flex
- The PENGU token, and the rise in value of the Pudgy Penguin NFTs after the announcement, has many speculating on other NFTs which may also drop tokens
- Some are farming a potential OpenSea airdrop
The best news in all of this?
It still feels early.
If crypto continues to pump through deep 2025, there's no reason to think NFTs won't pump alongside.
NFTs are back, and we have a lot of room to run...
🚚 What is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:
- Ethereum led NFT trading volume with $51M on the day; Solana was next with $6.7M and then Bitcoin with $4.15M
- ETH NFT leaders were washed in green; Punks +1% at 39.5 ETH, Pudgy +10% at 27.3, BAYC +10% at 19.6 ETH, Azuki +34% at 9.2; Milady +18% at 6.4, Doodles +68% to 4.2
- Pudgy Penguins reached a $100k floor for the first time in their existence, now at $107,000
- Dooplicator (+70%) and V (+70%) led notable top movers
- BTC NFT leaders were mostly red; Bitcoin Puppets -1% at 0.16 BTC, NodeMonkes -6% at 0.14, OMB -6% at 0.139, Quantum Cats even at 0.2
- The Runes leaders were mixed; DOG +5% at $960M mc, PUPS -5% at $248M, BDC -11% at $94M, GIZMO -13% at $35M, CYPHER even at $17M
- Mocaverse announced a 2nd Moca-airdrop for Mocaverse stakers
💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker
Here's a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:
- Magic Eden's token fell another 8% on the day and is trading at $4.90
- Phantom is now surfacing Pump Fun memecoins within minutes of launching, allowing users to view price history, bonding curve progress and more
- Rekt Drinks' purchasers officially reached a 10x return on their investments with rektcoin passing $100M
- Ubisoft announced the launch for its new Captain Laserhawk game along with a free NFT mint for the Niji Warrior NFT collection
- Backpack rolled out support for SUI on its wallet
🤖 AI x Crypto
New section dedicated to headlines in the AI sector of crypto:
- Overall market cap jumps another 12% to $9.7B with all the leaders in green
- VIRTUAL +12% to $1.9B, ai16z jumps 12% to $850M, GOAT +12% to $750M, ACT +6% to $5.23
- FARTCOIN rallied 38% to $580M and a new ATH after Stocktwits posted a viral meme with the FARTCOIN price and a person throwing away "The Intelligent Investor" (now back to $525M)
- Top movers include ROPIRITO, PH, LOLA, SOLARIS & MANA
- AIXBT sees biggest jump in mindshare after viral post; ONGO continues to own smart engagement ratio
- REALIS jumped 14% to $45M after releasing its tokenomics and sharing that its token stakers would receive all platform revenue
- New DAOS dot Fun project Taiger Global debuted and reached $8M, with their project vision focused on an AI Agent CTO system
- Ropirito became the first AI Agent to autonomously purchase a pizza according to its founder
- Bully became the first AI Agent ambassador, in partnership with 9dcc
- Alchemist introduced a live sports API to deliver real-time sports data
- Virtuals announced a new Agent Sandbox for infinite simulations, along with the update that AI Agents can join Google Meets
- Agent YP (AIYP) launches on Virtuals as "the AIXBT for gaming"
🌎 Macro Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
- Crypto majors are very green this morning; BTC +2% at $100,500, ETH +6% at $3,930, SOL +2% at $230, XRP +2% at $2.41
- Alts had a huge day with AAVE (+30%), SUI (+25%), HYPE (+25%) LINK (+20%) and UNI (+18%) leading
- Memecoin majors are green; DOGE +2% at $0.41, SHIBA +4%, PEPE +5%, WIF +4%, BONK +4%, MOG -7%; PNUT soared 15% after Coinbase announced it would list
- Ray Dalio said he prefers "hard money" assets like Gold and Bitcoin as major economies face a looming debt crisis
- Trump's confidant Paul Manafort said BTC holders will be “celebrating much higher [than $100,000] very soon I think" at the Abu Dhabi Bitcoin conference
- Trump's World Liberty Finance sparked alts by buying ETH, LINK and AAVE
- Vancouver passed a motion to become a "Bitcoin-friendly city" and explore its potential use cases
- Solana announced an 8-city takeover in the US in 2025 to help accelerate crypto innovation in the US
🚀 Memecoin Movers
- $PULSR (+12,000% to $13M market cap, SOL)
- $BLINK (+12,000% to $16M market cap, SOL)
- $DAPE (+6,000% to $15M market cap, SOL)
- $BGG1 (+220% to $13M market cap, SOL)
- $GRIFFAIN (+50% to $232M market cap, SOL)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)
- Doodles (85%, 4.58 ETH Floor)
- Alienfrens (80%, 0.11 ETH Floor)
- Dooplicator (73%, 0.14 ETH)
- V (72%, 0.68 ETH)
- On1 Force (59%, 0.18 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming Mints and Events
Folks - my source for daily mints and events has shut down operations.
Given the general lack of interest in new mints on a daily basis, I'll be discontinuing this section of the newsletter, at least for now.
If I can find a good source for daily events, I will look at turning it back on.
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