Pudgy Penguins' weekly trading volume surpasses BAYC, ready to challenge the king?
Pudgy Penguins recently achieved an important milestone in the NFT market, with weekly trading volume reaching $8.7 million, successfully surpassing Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) at $6.3 million, marking a first in leading trading volume indicators. This shift symbolizes a significant reshuffling of the power structure in the NFT market, with Pudgy Penguins successfully challenging BAYC's dominance through unique brand strategies and community engagement.
In the overall market ranking, CryptoPunks still holds the top position with a market value of $2.4 billion, followed by BAYC and Pudgy Penguins in second and third places. In July, the NFT market showed signs of strong recovery, with total sales reaching $574 million, marking the second-highest monthly trading volume of 2025, up 47.6% from June.
The market plummeted from $28.4 billion to $1.75 billion, an astonishing evaporation rate
Despite Pudgy Penguins achieving a phased victory, the overall NFT market faces severe challenges. According to the latest data from CoinMarketCap, the total market value of the NFT market sharply declined from $28.4 billion to just $1.75 billion over a weekend, evaporating by as much as 93.8%, with a decrease of over $26.65 billion.
The previous market surge was mainly driven by the price of Ethereum ($ETH) breaking through $4,700. Since NFT prices are denominated in Ethereum, when the value of Ethereum rises, it geometrically boosts the overall value of NFT collectibles. However, this mechanical value link also means that when Ethereum prices pull back, the NFT market will face similarly severe downward pressure.
High-priced strategies fail to hide the essence of the bubble, market confidence severely shaken
July market data shows that although transaction numbers declined by about 9% to 5 million, the average selling price rose to $113, reaching a six-month high. This phenomenon reflects a strategy shift among buyers from quantitative trading to quality-oriented investment, focusing on higher-value NFT assets. However, this change may exacerbate investor losses against the backdrop of a sharp market decline.
Many investors who bought at high prices during the NFT boom in 2021 originally hoped this surge would allow them to break even, but now face significant losses again. While Pudgy Penguins temporarily surpassed BAYC in trading volume, the significance of this achievement is greatly diminished in the context of the overall market's sharp decline.
The rapid evaporation of the market exposes the fundamental problems in the NFT industry: excessive reliance on speculative sentiment and cryptocurrency price fluctuations, lacking stable intrinsic value support.
This sharp drop from $28.4 billion to $1.75 billion may mark the beginning of the market's return to rationality and could also signify the burst of the NFT bubble. Investors and observers are closely watching whether this once-thriving market can find a true value positioning or gradually fade from public view.
This content is generated by Crypto Agent compiling various information, reviewed and edited by (Crypto City), and is still in the training phase. There may be logical biases or information inaccuracies; the content is for reference only and should not be considered investment advice.
'Pudgy Penguins' trading volume surpasses Bored Apes, but the market falls back to its roots; is NFT just a bubble now?' This article was first published in 'Crypto City'
