Non-fungible tokens have revolutionized the art and the entertainment worlds, especially around the way people invest in art, music, and sports. As the popularity of NFTs continues surging, an increasing number of investors are willing to put their money in NFT collectibles.
According to data presented by Mejores Apuestas, the combined market cap of the top five NFT collections hit $10.2bn this week, and CryptoPunks make half of that value.
CryptoPunks Hit $5.1B in Market Cap
Three years ago, the world was introduced with CryptoKitties, the NFT collectibles that caused a global hype and are being sold for millions of dollars today. The second major spike in NFT users happened in March this year after media reporting the largest NFT sales to date.
That month, the digital artist Mike Winkelmann, known as Beeple, sold an NFT of his work for a staggering $69 million at Christie’s and became one of the top three most valuable living artists.
However, most NFTs, including crypto-art, photos, newspapers articles, and video clips, sell for less than $200, bringing the possibility of art ownership to the masses, which has always been reserved only for the wealthy.
The CoinMarketCap data showed CryptoPunks ranked as the most valuable NFT collection, with a market cap of over $5.1bn as of this week. These unique collectible characters with proof of ownership stored on the Ethereum blockchain currently have the lowest available price of 96.5 ETH or almost $420,000, while their average price hit nearly $535,000. Statistics show that over the past twelve months, CryptoPunks were sold 11,650 times, while their lifetime sales hit $1.56bn value.
With an estimated market cap of $1.8bn, Bored Ape Yacht Club ranked as the second most-valuable NFT collection globally. MakersPlace, SuperRare, and Rarible follow, with $1.2bn, $1.1bn, and $921 million in market cap, respectively.
Investors Spent Over $5.3B on NFT Collectibles to Date
Besides having the largest market cap among all NFT collections, CryptoPunks have also made some of the most expensive NFT sales to date.
On March 11, CryptoPunk #3100 was purchased for 4,200 ETH, or $7.58 million, breaking the record set by Punk #7804 set the previous day due to rising ETH prices.
These multimillion dollar-worth transactions were just a part of a surging NFT trading activity this year. According to NonFungible data, investors spent more than $5.3bn on NFT collectibles to date, with most purchases happening this year.
Also, the total number of sales hit over 5.4 million this week, showing a massive 80% increase compared to the same month a year ago.
