Bitcoin Ordinals NFT interest soars as NodeMonkes records 53% surge in floor price

The floor price of NodeMonkes, Bitcoin’s premiere non-fungible token (NFT) collection, surged by over 50% in the past 24 hours, surpassing Bored Ape Yacht Club in market capitalization on Monday morning in Asia, according to CoinGecko data.

As of 11:00 a.m. Hong Kong time, the floor price of NodeMonkes had jumped by 53.3% to 0.83 BTC ($55,890) over the past 24 hours, with its market cap expanding to around $558.9 million. 

This made NodeMonkes the second-largest NFT collection in terms of market cap, CoinGecko data showed. CryptoPunks’ market cap amounted to $1.76 billion, with BAYC’s standing at $490.9 million.

NodeMonkes’ sales rose by 140.8% in the past 24 hours to reach a sales volume of $5.1 million, according to data from CryptoSlam. Runestone, another bitcoin NFT collection, saw a 40.7% surge in floor price, with its market cap reaching $306.5 million, becoming the sixth-largest NFT collection in market cap.

“Just as token traders pivoted from ETH to SOL memecoins, NFT traders have been pouring into Bitcoin NFTs,” Nick Ruck, chief operating officer of ContentFi Labs, told The Block. “Runestone and NodeMonkes have seen a surge in buyers and enthusiasts with the latter having managed to flip BAYC which has seen a major selloff in recent weeks.”

‘Exhausted’ Ethereum-based NFT market

Ruck added that the move might also be partially fueled by rising gas costs and an “exhausted NFT market” on Ethereum as “even PudgyPenguins declined to less than 10 ETH from a recent all-time high of 20 ETH.”

The monthly trading volume on Ethereum-based NFT marketplaces fell to $786.5 million in February from January’s $867.8 million, according to The Block’s data dashboard. The trading volume for March so far amounted to $503.1 million.