Yesterday, NodeMonkes, an Ordinals collection launched in December 2023, was the top selling NFT collection for the day, bringing in around $1.6 million in sales. With the surge, NodeMonkes passed $211 million in all-time sales volume and has become the number one NFT collection on Bitcoin, flipping $SATS BRC-20 NFTs.
CryptoPunks came in second place, with $1.3 million in total daily sales on Thursday, led by the sale of Punk #7846 for around $557,000 in ETH. The Punks have had a strong spring season. In March and April, three Alien Punks sold for over $10 million, helping to bring the collection’s total sales to an impressive $2.8 billion. It is currently the third leading NFT collection of all time.
The highest NodeMonkes sale occurred in March for 17 BTC (or around $1.1 million) and was the second-highest Ordinals sale to date. Currently, the floor price for a NodeMonkes NFT is 0.41 BTC, down from its all-time-high of 0.9 BTC in March 2024.
NodeMonkes consists of 10,000 monkey themed NFTs inscribed on Bitcoin using the Ordinals protocol. It claims to be the first 10,000-count PFP collection on Ordinals, though that has been debated. Either way, it’s become popular for Ordinals collectors for its early-mover status and strong meme culture, and has surpassed $210 million in total sales volume.
While Bitcoin NFTs are still a ways behind top NFT collections on Ethereum, it’s not surprising, considering the Bitcoin Ordinals protocol was launched in January 2023 and Ethereum NFTs date back to 2017. But over the past thirty days, Bitcoin has been the leading blockchain for NFTs, with over $594 million in trading volume to Ethereum’s $244 million, as per data from CryptoSlam at the time of writing.
The Ordinals protocol, which allows for fully on-chain images to be inscribed on individual satoshis, Bitcoin’s smallest unit of measurement, opened Bitcoin up to the world of NFTs at the beginning of 2023 and hasn’t looked back. Building on the success of Ordinals, its creator Casey Rodarmor also released Runes in April, a new Bitcoin token standard that enables fungible tokens on Bitcoin.
Bitcoin Ordinals Attracts Top Creators
When Casey Rodarmor first released the Ordinals protocol, the idea of NFTs on Bitcoin was met with a lot of criticism, especially from Bitcoin maximalists. But after over a year of existence, it’s clear that whether you like or not, NFTs on Bitcoin are here to stay. At Rarity Sniper, we’ve covered dozens of stories about Ordinals.
Here are some of the top headlines from the past six months:
- NFT Market Heats Up: Bitcoin Ordinals Leading the Way
- Yue Minjun to Release First Ordinals NFT Collection with LiveArt
- Wu-Tang Clan Rapper Ghostface Killer Drops Bitcoin Ordinals NFTs
- Trump Gifts Limited Ordinals To People Who Purchase 100 NFTs
- Sotheby’s Debuts First Curated Auction of Bitcoin Ordinals
- Sotheby’s Holds First Ordinals Auction: BitcoinShrooms
- Ordinals Heat Up as Bitcoin Flips Ethereum in Trading Volume
Perhaps the main reason that’s compelling NFT creators and collectors to flock to Ordinals is that the NFTs are minted fully on-chain and enjoy the security and immutability of the Bitcoin network. That isn’t true for the majority of NFTs on Ethereum, around 90% of which are hosted on private servers or IPFS.
Time will tell if NodeMonkes and Bitcoin will continue to rise in the NFT space. But considering Bitcoin’s ever-growing number of enthusiasts, we think there’s a good chance they will.