High-value NFT collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club and Pudgy Penguins are seeing significant price increases, even as the broader non-fungible token market suffers from declining sales and user activity, according to CoinDesk.
Floor prices for these blue-chip assets have climbed by double digits in recent weeks. Pudgy Penguins' floor price recently rose above 5 ETH, marking a weekly increase of more than 20 percent.
Bored Ape Yacht Club has seen an even sharper rebound, with its floor price jumping 81 percent over the past 30 days. These gains follow a period of depressed market levels.
However, the surge in top-tier prices hides a contraction in market depth. Global NFT sales volume fell to approximately $1undollars 175 million in April, down from $304 million in February, according to CryptoSlam data.
Total transactions and active users have also nearly halved since February. While average sale prices more than doubled from $30.60 in March to $67.38 in April, this reflects a concentration of capital rather than a market-wide recovery.
Concentration of volume
Trading activity is increasingly localized within a handful of top collections. Pudgy Penguins is currently seeing relatively high transaction counts alongside its rising prices, with 201 sales and nearly 1,000 ETH in volume over the past seven days.
In contrast, other major collections like CryptoPunks have recorded similar weekly volumes but with far fewer trades. This indicates that a small number of large-scale transactions are driving the apparent price increases.
Market integrity remains a concern as much of the volume is still driven by wash trading. This practice, where users trade with themselves to inflate volume, obscures real demand.
Additionally, much of the recent NFT price movement may simply be a byproduct of the broader cryptocurrency market. Ethereum and Bitcoin both rose roughly 18 percent over the past month.
Because blue-chip collections are priced in ETH, they have caught the upward drift of the larger crypto-wide risk-on move. Aggregate trading profits across the market remain negative, meaning many participants are still holding assets worth less than their purchase price.
