As we ushered in December, the world of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) began with a notable bang. In the first weeks of the new month, digital collectibles recorded over $187 million in weekly sales, championed by Ethereum – the leading digital collectible blockchain. This surpasses November’s peak week, which rolled out $181 million in sales, continuing a promising upward trend which took root in October.
Following a slump since March that bottomed out in September with the year’s worst monthly sales volume, October saw a sharp recovery for NFTs. This culminated in an impressive 57% month-on-month surge, with total sales hitting over $562 million in November.
The Ethereum blockchain boasted $92 million in NFT sales. That represents a remarkable 44.69% hike from the previous week. What’s driven this surge? A lot of credit goes to popular NFT collections like Pudgy Penguins and CryptoPunks, bagging strong performances week on week. According to data from CryptoSlam, Pudgy Penguins recored $25 million in sales, a solid 346% increase from its prior week.
CryptoPunks came in a close second in the NFT collection rankings, putting up $16.5 million in weekly sales, with a peak floor price of 44 Ether on December 4th before settling at 40 Ether, or roughly $160,000. Other notable blockchain platforms such as Bitcoin, Solana, Polygon, Cardano and Flow clocked up a combined $47 million in weekly sales.
December bore even more good news for Ethereum. This surge in NFT sales was mirrored by a price breakout for the associated cryptocurrency, ETH, itself. On December 6th, Ethereum leapt beyond the $4,000 price point. Some speculate that ETH may even be on the cusp of a paradigm-shifting rally similar to the exponential growth experienced between 2016 and 2017. Such a rally could see ETH prices reaching the heights of $15,000.