OCTA: Things Are Melting Up Quietly 
And just like that, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have officially had their first ‘Uptober.’
You’ve felt it for weeks, and now the numbers don’t lie; October was a very big month for NFTs. This week, sales have rebounded, and trends were broken including the seven-month skid for monthly NFT sales that October’s over US$300 million in sales put an end to.
There was a perfect storm brewing for NFTs to succeed this month. That storm resulted in a nine-week high for global NFT sales, even with total transactions slowing down to the lowest we’ve seen in nearly 1 year. Sellers were taking advantage of now-perfect conditions to grab liquidity by selling their remaining valuable NFTs. It’s hard to say that sellers were the winners here though, with trade profits still largely in the negative, to the tune of US$7.8 million.
Still, large NFT sales like Bored Ape Yacht Club #6022, which sold for US$303,000, helped drive average NFT sale prices to a four-month high of US$60.38.
Social finance (SoFi) platforms continue to play a big role in NFT’s success, with their continued struggles to attract traders. Friend.tech failed to reach US$1 million of trading volume on multiple days in the past week, and Stars Arena is now crumbling under accusations of mishandling funds. The top five SoFi platforms all saw their total value locked (TVL) decline this week, with Stars Arena falling the most, down 86.11%.
The continued weakness in SoFi had traders ramping up wash trading yet again, pushing wash sales up over 42% from last week, and reaching a 15-week high of US$58 million.
For this week at least, the good times will roll on, and it couldn’t have been scripted more perfectly. First, today the Forgotten Runes project is hosting a massive metaverse Halloween party, and the entire NFT community is invited to join.
The party, called Nightmare Run, is powered by MSquared, the very tech behind Yuga Lab’s Otherside. This metaverse is capable of hosting tens of thousands of gamers in a single live instance, and there’s expected to be a pretty massive turnout.
Later this week it’s the Bored Ape’s turn to party with Ape Fest 2023 taking place in Hong Kong on Nov. 4. For those who can’t make it, The DAM SHOW will be streaming interviews and alpha. If you’ve not seen an NFT party yet, now is your chance for a sneak peek.
Let’s appreciate October as the treat that it was for those who have weathered this long NFT winter. Maybe we’ll find out it was a trick all along, but for now, it’s pretty darn sweet.
Peep the charts
- Bored Ape Yacht Club is riding the hype wave to Ape Fest in Hong Kong this week. The collection’s floor prices have climbed back over 30 ETH, with average sales reaching a peak of US$79,000 on Oct. 28.
- The Captainz $MEME token sale is driving a frenzy into the PFPs that we haven’t seen in a long time, and the collection’s sales up over 164% in the past week.
- AOIEngine minted ArtBlocks’ founder Snowfro’s latest NFT last week as part of Red Bull’s Velocity Racing Series NFTs. The collection minted out at 0.3 ETH and currently has a floor price of 0.8 ETH.
- CryptoPunks have had 12 NFT sales priced at over US$100,000 this week, along with representing 48 of the top 100 NFT collectible sales this week.
- Ethereum NFTs are clearly having a big month, but a majority of total sales are wash sales, with US$61 million in wash sales representing over 51% of Ethereum’s sales.
- Solana’s lucky US$7.77 million is honestly more than luck. Big developments from Mad Labs, the Phantom Wallet’s Camera Mint feature, and Claynosaurz’s new plushies and animations show that Solana is ready for primetime.
- Bitcoin is in the top 5 for the second week in a row, powered by huge BRC-20 sales, especially the US$2.5 million in sales from the $SATS BRC-20 collection, and rising interest in Ordinals once again.
