CRYPTO MOVERS AND PRICES
Crypto prices were relatively flat this morning. Cardano (ADA) and Solana (SOL) outperform in the Top 10, up 5.54% and 19.95% respectively.
Crypto Story of the Day
NFT marketplace OpenSea recorded all-time high daily users, volume, and transactions on Tuesday according to open source data (see Chart of the Day). We highlight notable transactions that have taken place since the resurgence of NFTs this summer.
Sotheby’s Sells CryptoPunk #7523
Between June 3-10, Sotheby’s held the Natively Digital sale, auctioning a collection of 27 NFTs. The highest bid item was CryptoPunk #7523 which sold for USD 11.75 million. CryptoPunks are an Ethereum-based collection of 10,000 NFTs created by Larva Labs in 2017. The entire collection was claimed at inception, with all CryptoPunks now trading in the secondary market.
CryptoPunks represent the largest collection of secondary market activity by USD volume, having traded roughly USD 930 million in their lifetime according to crypto data site DappRadar. Sotheby’s sale of #7523 is the highest fiat-settled CryptoPunk transaction from the Larva Labs collection.
CryptoPunk#5217 Sells For ETH 2.25k
On July 30, CryptoPunk #5217 sold for ETH 2.25k, or USD 5.45 million, which is the largest ETH sale of an NFT this summer and third largest CryptoPunk sale of all time. The last time #5217 exchanged hands in 2017, it sold for ETH 2.5— about USD 2,000 at the time. Larva Labs currently lists the lowest priced CryptoPunk at ETH 77.66, or about USD 242,000.
Budweiser Enters Blockchain
On August 11, brewing company Budweiser purchased the Ethereum domain name beer.eth for ETH 30, or roughly USD 95,000, via OpenSea. On August 24, Budweiser purchased an NFT depicting an image of a rocket ship built out of Budweiser beer cans using their beer.eth OpenSea account. The NFT sold for ETH 8, or USD 25,000 at the time of the sale. Budweiser subsequently changed its Twitter profile photo to the image. While the price tag of the NFT is small in comparison to larger sales in the space, it is an interesting branding strategy for institutions entering the crypto space.
Justin Sun Buys A Rock
On Sunday, TRON (TRX) Founder Justin Sun tweeted “[j]ust spent half million dollars on a rock.” Sun was referring to the purchase of an Ethereum-based NFT portraying a grey cartoon rock. The NFT was created by EtherRock, a project which released a collection of 100 unique rocks back in 2017. On Monday afternoon following Sun’s purchase, Rock 89 from the collection sold for ETH 420, worth roughly USD 1.3 million at the time of the sale. A Twitter page dedicated to sharing EtherRock transactions tweeted shortly after the sale of Rock 89, stating that the floor price of rocks listed for sale was ETH 305 or about USD 1 million.
Visa Buys CryptoPunk #7610
On Monday, Visa tweeted revealed it had purchased CryptoPunk #7610 for ETH 49.5, or about USD 150,000. In its announcement, Visa added that its CryptoPunk will join its collection of “historic commerce artifacts.” Following the purchase, Visa’s Head of Crypto Cuy Sheffield said in a blog post that the company thinks “NFTs will play an important role in the future of retail, social media, entertainment, and commerce.”
Chart of the Day
OpenSea Daily Users & Volume: Daily users on the OpenSea NFT platform hit an all-time high of about 35.1k yesterday, while volume reached an all-time high of roughly USD 202 million Tuesday, according to available open source data. (Source: DappRadar)