Valhalla and Pudgy Penguins Enter Top 10 Collections | NFT News

The two projects feature alongside Punks, Apes, Art Blocks and more

This week’s look at the most popular and expensive NFTs features a new collection and one that is returning to a position of former glory. Valhalla is a project from FLOKI that will be a whole new metaverse gaming platform with its own digital collectible. Pudgy Penguins is making a resurgent comeback following a year of dedicated and thoughtful rebuilding.

Trading volumes surge for top collections

It’s no secret that the second half of 2022 hasn’t been a great one for the NFT market. DappRadar reported last week that overall trading volumes and sales counts went down 17.47% and 22.24%, respectively, during November.

The downward trend that started in May has continued and November saw the lowest NFT trading volumes for the whole year. $546 million worth of digital items were bought and sold during the month, well down from a January high of $5.7 billion. You can read the full report here for more insights.

The news isn’t all bad though. For some collections, the past week has seen a surge in on-chain activities. Floor prices for four Yuga Labs collections all went up:

For eight of the 10 most traded collections, sale and trader counts were up. The size of the increase is remarkable. The table below shows that sales counts for seven of the eight collections went up by more than 100%. Only Art Blocks saw its sales count go up by less than 100%, with a 15.87% increase.

DappRadar’s NFT Collection Explorer shows on-chain sales activity rose for many collections last week. Among them were Valhalla and Pudgy Penguins, one a brand new collection and the other an established project going through a resurgent period.

Pudgy Penguins continues inspiring revival

Pudgy Penguins launched in July 2021 during the height of the NFT bull run. It soon came to light that founder ColeThereum had a history of rug pulls and, in January 2022, prominent community members voiced concerns about the Pudgy Penguins leadership.

In April 2022, Luca Netz paid 750 ETH (around $2.5 million at the time) to take control of the project. What followed has been called “the greatest comeback story” and this week, Pudgy Penguins is back in DappRadar’s top 10 as one of the most traded collections on the market.

The reason for the collection’s resurgence can be put down to its visionary and experienced team with a strong track record in successful marketing. They’ve leveraged the likable Pudgy Penguins artwork by releasing a range of physical toys in time for the festive season.

The project also has a great social media presence and a committed community that has stayed loyal to the brand throughout its tumultuous history. With this in mind, it’s no surprise that over the past week:

• The floor price is up 60.49% to $5,570.
• The market cap is up 15.9% to $49.55 million.
• Trading volume is up 187.53% to $2.77 million.
• Trader count is up 92.42% and the sales count is up 231.71%.

DappRadar will be sitting down with Pudgy Penguins savior Luca Netz for a Twitter Spaces on 13 December at 6pm UTC. We’ll be discussing rug pulls and redemption during our ‘Rescuing a Rug’ conversation.

FLOKI project Valhalla inside Top 5 NFT collections

Valhalla is FLOKI’s NFT metaverse game that aims to expand the meme token’s reach into Web3 and make the ecosystem more sustainable for the future. The NFTs went on sale on 22 November and sold out a day later. Now the collection has a floor price around 0.877 ETH.

Over the past week, traders have bought and sold $5.47 million worth of Valhalla NFTs, an impressive amount for a new project considering the depressed state of the current market. DappRadar’s data shows that on-chain metrics have increased across the board for Valhalla.

• The average sale price for the collection is up 31.59% over the past week.
• Trading volumes are up 306.08%
• The number of users trading them is up 130.26%.
• Sales count is 220.76%.

One reason for the collection’s rise in on-chain metrics is that FLOKI dropped some alpha on 11 December with links to a free Valhalla demo and instructions on how to play the game. When communities see projects follow through on promises and launch actual products, they become bullish on the future.

NFT marketplace X2Y2 has recently enabled its NFT Loan function for the Valhalla project. Users can diamond hand their Valhalla collectibles locking them up and releasing liquidity in return.

Despite some initial misgivings from the online chorus about Valhalla’s mint price and influencer hype, it seems the project is doing well at the moment. We’ve seen from recent collections that this won’t necessarily last, but we have seen that there is some real utility to back up the NFTs.

X2Y2 handles six of the 10 most expensive sales

When it comes to NFT trading, we’re used to a world where OpenSea dominates the big trades, followed by Magic Eden . But this week, six of the 10 most expensive sales happened on the X2Y2 marketplace.

Saying this, OpenSea still processed the biggest volume of trades by quite a margin. Traders used the platform to make $59.99 million worth of trades, an increase from last week of 14.32%. $46.95 million (78.3%) of that overall trading volume was for Ethereum NFTs.

The marketplace with the second-highest trading volume was Blur, a new addition to the scene. Users made $37.86 million worth of trades on Blur, which is a week-on-week increase of 61.76%.

By clicking on any of the links above, you can explore the NFTs, look at their trading history and see how much DappRadar’s NFT Value Estimator thinks they are worth. You can also view the Owners’ Wallet to see what else they are holding in their collection.

ENS Domain name metaverse.eth sells for 99 ETH

For the first time in a few weeks, the top sales are not completely dominated by CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club. Of course, four of the top 10 most expensive items are Apes. But CryptopPunks don’t feature at all, and there’s an eclectic mix of other interesting items to look at.

An ENS Domain is back in the top 10, this time it’s a metaverse-based name. This collector bought metaverse.eth for 99 ETH on 8 December. It’s the only item currently sat in the buyer’s wallet so we don’t know their identity. Whoever bought it, they clearly believe that the future of the internet is Web3.
ChatGPT has been all over the news for the past week. So maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise that an AI-generated nude portrait sold for 108 ETH. The piece was bought on SuperRare by an anonymous user and you can find it here on the marketplace. You can also view the contract on Etherscan here.