Written by: BUBBLE, Cookie
After 4 years, 'Punk Sweep' has appeared again, with a single address spending $8 million to sweep 46 CryptoPunks, completely igniting the enthusiasm of the NFT community.
Not just CryptoPunks, the overall trading volume of the NFT market has warmed up again in recent days, even surpassing the high point of February this year. According to Coingecko data, the total market cap of the NFT sector has increased by 29% in the last 24 hours, breaking through $6.7 billion. The trading volume has surged by 372%, reaching $45 million.
Crypto seems to have abandoned the NFT sector for a long time, but the 'notorious' MoonBirds have recently made moves, seemingly preparing to follow the IP path of 'Pudgy Penguins', coupled with the overall recovery of the NFT market and the recent multiple mentions of OpenSea, which has delayed its token release for a long time, can we ask the question, 'Is NFT Summer back?'
After 4 years, large holders are clearing CryptoPunks
Four years ago, in July 2021, '0x65d' spent about $7 million to sweep 104 CryptoPunks, which is the legendary 'Punk Sweep'. In March 2022, these 104 CryptoPunks were valued in an auction at Sotheby's for $20-30 million as a whole, but twenty minutes after the auction began, '0x65d' canceled the auction.
Four years later, in July 2025, '0x1bb' spent about $8 million to sweep 46 Crypto Punks. Seeing 'Punk Sweep 2.0' as ETH approaches its historical highs gives a sense of the cyclical nature of time.
The funds used for purchasing NFTs at this address '0x1bb351C5410b2f6BaE36a74aA6B38a9800AE72D6' were transferred from Coinbase Prime a day ago. In addition to 46 CryptoPunks, this address also purchased 11 generative art leaders, Chromie Squiggle. According to on-chain data, part of the funds for purchasing NFTs was also transferred from the address '0xF1CDC3De7819f93fB93D0c52001d4Fa495Ab471D', which similarly had its funds transferred from Coinbase Prime a day ago, and also purchased 19 Chromie Squiggles.
In total, '0x1bb' purchased 46 CryptoPunks and 30 Chromie Squiggles, spending approximately $8.6 million.
Currently, the identity of '0x1bb' remains a mystery; no one knows which whale or organization is behind this address. After the copyright of CryptoPunks was acquired by Infinite Node Foundation for about $20 million in May this year, the official Twitter account of Infinite Node Foundation has not updated any tweets since, making this a 'mysterious rise' — we don't know who '0x1bb' is or why they suddenly made such a large purchase.
But '0x1bb's' large-scale purchases have clearly ignited the sentiment in the NFT market:
Ethereum NFTs are rising across the board (well... except for Milady)
Solana NFTs are rising across the board
Bitcoin NFTs are rising across the board
Are Moonbirds following the old path of Penguins?
The rise of Moonbirds is particularly noteworthy among all these projects. In the past week, the floor price of Moonbirds has nearly tripled. If we extend the timeline to the past three months, the floor price of Moonbirds has already increased nearly 11 times.
On May 31 of this year, Moonbirds was acquired by Orange Cap Games from Yuga Labs, and the news caused the floor price to increase nearly 3 times. After a period of adjustment, Moonbirds began to explode.
Moonbirds is currently conveying an image of 'Pudgy Penguins CTO 2.0'. In 2022, after Luca Netz took over Pudgy Penguins, the team quickly went to work, refreshing the entire IP to become a top IP in the NFT circle by today.
Orange Cap Games, which acquired Moonbirds, is also known for creating the card game 'Vibes TCG' using Pudgy Penguins IP. By the end of 2024, Orange Cap Games completed a $2 million angel round of financing, and it was through this funding that 'Vibes TCG' came to be. On June 10 of this year, they announced they completed a $3.5 million seed round, led by 1kx and Yuga Labs.
In 2023, Pudgy Penguins raised $9 million in seed funding, also led by 1kx.
Spencer Gordon-Sand, CEO of Orange Cap Games, is a well-known figure in the circle; he founded Spencer Ventures, a fund focused on NFTs, back in 2022. After acquiring Moonbirds, the new team quickly delivered some visible changes to the community, similar to what Pudgy Penguins did back in the day.
'Spencer: After acquiring the entire Moonbirds series, we became the daily trading volume leader in ETH NFTs for 5 days within 51 days, confirmed an airdrop from the social application Towns, confirmed free Pokémon cards, got OpenSea's official Twitter to change our avatar, established a Telegram announcement channel with 25,000 members, put $1.4 million into a lottery for buying our Telegram stickers, secured $350,000 funding led by 1kx, hired new team members, and are about to announce.'
It can be said that Moonbirds have been liberated from the strategic contraction trend of Yuga Labs, becoming a new company that is vigorously developing the IP, making everyone associate it with the appearance of Pudgy Penguins back in the day as the price rises. These changes have significantly altered the fundamentals of Moonbirds.
What other projects have seen unusual activity today?
Thanks to Ethereum's recent rise, today the main driving force behind the capital flowing into NFTs is still Ethereum. However, many projects in the Solana and Bitcoin ecosystems have also followed this wave of enthusiasm.
Solana Ecosystem
The official Solana account directly posted the images of four NFT project parties today with the caption 'We're so back.' In fact, these four Solana NFT projects have each developed in different directions in their respective fields.
Among them, Solana Monkey Business (SMB), as one of the earliest NFT projects deeply involved in the Solana ecosystem, still occupies the top of the gainers list, with a 24-hour increase of 36%, a floor price of 25 SOL, and a trading volume exceeding $650,000.
This NFT project operated by MonkeDAO is known for its community focus, including innovative initiatives like running Solana verification nodes, and its core founding team members Nom and SolportTom are also part of the successful launch platform LetsBonk/BONK that is currently combating Pumpfun.
In addition, SolportTom also mentioned another project he 'DeRUGed' (AKA CTO) — Taiyo Robotics, which has also seen a strong rise, with a floor price increase of 40% in 24 hours to 60 SOL, and a trading volume exceeding $260,000, having increased 10 times in the past month. According to Tom, this is the first CTO project to emerge in the currently popular 'CTO concept' within the Solana ecosystem.
Tom also recounted his experience of being 'forced CTO' at that time, when he was just entering the field and was part of a little-known development team working for clients. We had a small BD team that would run to their Discord and send messages whenever a new project was MINTing, saying we could provide some services, like deploying Candy Machine.
Later, Taiyo reached out to the team wanting to create a marketplace where users could purchase custom assets and replace components on their Bots. They brought TOM's team into Discord and assigned roles, but afterward, they basically 'vanished'.
As a result, the community believed they were also part of the team, but TOM himself couldn't figure it out, saying, 'Not wanting my reputation to be tarnished because of this, I decided to take over this project myself, using it as a backing for community credibility, to gain some goodwill.'
Unlike SMB deeply engaging with the Solana community, Claynosaurz's path resembles 'American-style' Azuki, led by an experienced team of animators, focusing on high-quality content creation, with a trading volume of $120,000 in nearly 24 hours. Claynosaurz recently won the Collision Awards Gold Medal for animation excellence, and team members also participated as invited guests in one of the most renowned animation events held in San Diego — COMIC CON, becoming one of the most prominent animated NFTs in the Solana project.
The former Solana leader Mad Lads saw its floor price rise by 20% within 24 hours, bringing it back to 40 SOL. The well-established NFT project Galactic Geckos also experienced astonishing growth, with its floor price nearly doubling within 24 hours, now quoted at 6.5 SOL.
Ordinals Ecosystem
The Ordinals ecosystem has been quiet for a long time, but it has stirred some waves; aside from the single-day floor price increase of 30% for NodeMonkes (although still far from its ATH), the current leader in the Ordinals ecosystem, Taproot Wizard, is just 6 orders away from reaching ATH again, with the floor price already hitting $25,000 at current Bitcoin rates. Not to mention, purchasing an NFT still costs 'digital gold' Bitcoin, making it hard not to think that Taproot Wizard's next plans may go far beyond just a 'community'.
As more and more NFT projects and old OGs are 'revived', does this NFT wave represent that the NFT sector can gain recognition from the capital market, becoming an outlet for funds flowing into the bull market, or will it ultimately be just another fleeting moment after countless attempts at revival?
We cannot know, just like we don't know how long 'is coming' really means for OpenSea.
