NFT Market Faces Significant Declines Amid Ether Price Fluctuations

According to Cointelegraph, blue-chip non-fungible token (NFT) collections experienced notable declines over the past week as Ether's value retreated from its all-time highs. Data from decentralized finance aggregator DefiLlama revealed that leading NFT projects saw their floor prices decrease by double digits within the last seven days. Among the hardest hit were prominent collections such as Pudgy Penguins, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), and Doodles. Pudgy Penguins, which led the NFT market in terms of 24-hour and 7-day trading volume, witnessed a 17.3% drop to a floor price of 10.32 Ether (ETH). BAYC experienced a 14.7% decline to 9.59 ETH, while Doodles faced one of the steepest corrections, falling 18.9% to 0.73 ETH. Other significant collections like Moonbirds and Lil Pudgys also saw declines of 10.5% and 14.6%, respectively. The decrease in NFT floor prices followed a sharp retracement in ETH after reaching new all-time highs. On Monday, CoinGecko data indicated that ETH achieved a record high of $4,946. However, the cryptocurrency dropped 12% on Tuesday to $4,342 before showing slight recovery. At the time of reporting, ETH was trading at $4,433. Despite the downturn affecting many collections, not all NFT projects were in retreat. CryptoPunks, which maintained its position as the top NFT collection by market cap, demonstrated relative resilience, with only a 1.35% decline over the week. Even as floor prices fell, trading volumes remained robust. Pudgy Penguins led the market with approximately 2,112 ETH (around $9.36 million) in trading volume throughout the week. Moonbirds followed with 1,979 ETH ($8.77 million), while CryptoPunks recorded 1,879 ETH (about $8.33 million) in volume. BAYC had 809 ETH ($3.59 million) in trading volume. The broader NFT market also faced challenges, with its capitalization dropping nearly 5% to $7.7 billion, as reported by data aggregator NFT Price Floor. On August 13, the overall NFT market capitalization peaked at $9.3 billion, marking a 40% increase from July's $6.6 billion. This surge was driven by heightened NFT activity following an ETH price increase. However, by August 18, the NFT market cap had further declined to $8.1 billion, erasing $1.2 billion from digital collectible valuations.