The only rally during Bitcoin 2026 was Ethereum NFTs
During the world’s largest Bitcoin conference, Ethereum NFTs have, ironically, provided one of only a few green shoots on red-filled crypto dashboards.
Bitcoin’s biggest annual conference opened on Monday in Las Vegas with bitcoin (BTC) above $78,600 and tens of thousands of attendees packing into the Venetian conference center to hear why it should be worth more.
Three days later, BTC was below $75,000.
Over the three-day conference, every top 10 digital asset was negative except for memecoin DOGE. Far lower down the leaderboard, however, Ethereum NFT collections from the 2021 bull run rallied.
Bored Ape Yacht Club climbed 17% over the past seven days, while its two derivatives, Mutant Ape Yacht Club and Bored Ape Kennel Club, rallied 25% and 53%, respectively.
Pudgy Penguins added 15%, Azuki NFTs rallied 34%, Doodles gained 27%, and Clone X was up 16%.
The Bitcoin conference’s institutional speaker lineup, reportedly drawing more than 40,000 attendees across three days — even though many received free GA passes — was supposed to deliver a flurry of bullish headlines. Instead, it became a classic sell-the-news event.
Meanwhile, over on Bitcoin’s largest competitor Ethereum, five-year-old cartoon apes became one of the best-performing trades in crypto.
Read more: Pudgy Penguins PENGU token crashes at launch alongside NFTs
Percentage gains are easy from a low base
The reality, of course, is that the entire NFT market cap is now $1.9 billion, down from a peak exceeding $17 billion in April 2022.
So although NFTs have performed well over the last month, they’re still well beneath their previous highs.
Moreover, NFTs are now a thinly-traded asset class with high mark-to-market capitalizations that require very little purchases to move collection valuations substantially.
Worse, wash trading accounts for roughly $24 million of the $48 million total NFT trading volume over the past week.
Indeed, the rally is almost purely a floor-price phenomenon that’s thinly justified by real purchases. Over the last 30 days on just $125 million of non-wash traded volume, including liquidations and sales at lower prices, the total market cap of NFTs has increased $480 million.
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