NFTs are underperforming the broader crypto markets amid the latest leg of bullish momentum posted by ETH and BTC.
Token listings on Blur, the leading NFT marketplace, show five of the top six collections by daily volume suffering losses of between 20% and 37% when measured in ETH over the past seven days.
Notable losers include the Bored and Mutant Ape Yacht Clubs (BAYC and MAYC), the second and sixth-largest collection by market cap, with losses of 20% and 30% respectively, in addition to the third-ranked Pudgy Penguins slumping 30%, and tenth-ranked Azuki dropping 31.6%.
The latter three collections also suffered losses of between 15% and 20% against USD over the same period, while BAYC tumbled 5%, according to NFT Price Floor.
The volatility wreaked havoc on users of Blend, Blur’s NFT lending platform. NFTstats.eth, an NFT data aggregator, tweeted that liquidations for loans backed by NFTs from leading collections surged to a new all-time high on March 6.
Approximately 240 tokens from the BAYC, MAYC, Pudgy Penguins, Azuki, and DeGods collections entered liquidation amid the turmoil.
The bearish momentum surrounding top NFT collections coincides with Ethereum rallying to its highest level since December 2021 yesterday and Bitcoin briefly tagged a new all-time high on March 4. Both assets are now up roughly 150% since mid-October.
The underperformance of the NFT sector suggests many collectors have been gripped by fear-of-missing-out, with NFT holders seeking to offload their illiquid non-fungibles for Ether in response to ETH’s recent meteoric gains.
However, select NFT collections have bucked the weekly downtrend. CryptoPunks, the top NFT collection by market cap, is up 15.5% against the dollar and down just 2.4% compared to ETH, while, Chromie Squiggle is fifth after gaining 27% on USD and 13% over ETH, and Milady Maker now ranks seventh after jumping 76.4% and 50.5% over USD and ETH respectively.
Source: The Defiant
