Who remembers NFT in 2024? Perhaps some Pudgy Penguin owners also received ZK tokens. Others may have moved to ordinals, hoping to start on the ground floor with a whole new collection of value. Older NFTs, however, are not doing as well and are looking for ways to survive.
At the peak of the NFT bull cycle in 2021, Punks reached a floor price of $500,000. NFT minting was an anything-goes market, where it was the norm to sell entire collections in minutes, before even revealing the images and rare trait information.
Artists like Beeple have also made a fortune after selling a single NFT. Yuga Labs increased its influence by launching a token as well as a real-world presence. The NFT boom, however, was tied to crypto performance, and prices fell as the 2022-2023 bear market wiped out value.
Floor prices collapse for large collections
After the bear market of 2023, NFT collections no longer recovered to reach sky-high prices. For some, the road was long. In June, Crypto Punks, the flagship collection of all NFTs, reached a floor price of 26 ETH, an all-time low. Punks have been losing ground since the start of 2024, while they still managed to reclaim a respectable floor price of 60 ETH.
Even in this bear market, Punks are still not for sale on OpenSea, and some last changed hands in 2021. Blur is still an active market for NFTs, but despite the floor price data, real deals do not exceed 10. ETH. At this rate, older early buyers who sold at the top are considering their old NFT for re-entry.
The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) doesn’t fare much better. In just a few days, BAYC erased 20% of its price floor, falling to 8.86 ETH.
This is starting to look like a negative trend, unless you take into account Miladies, the collection that refuses to make sense. In fact, Miladies have reached an all-time low price of 4.75 ETH, a mint price of 0.06 ETH and all holders are simply refusing to sell, only listing less than 5% of all Miladies ever minted. Pudgy Penguins, another flagship collection, is holding strong for now, with a floor price of 8.3 ETH and a large social media presence.
Hackers also won’t refuse an NFT when it’s free, as wallet depletion remains a common exploit.
Not all collections are in the dregs, and some maintain rock-bottom prices that are still prohibitive. However, the rapid sinking raises fears that the former holders will divest.
What keeps NFT above water
NFT collections claim exclusivity, so some holders are simply not willing to sell for the status their BAYC or MAYC avatar gives them. Other collections quickly shifted their focus to agriculture, making each owner eligible for further mints and airdrops. With this goal in mind, first-time buyers are in no hurry to part with their exclusive club pass.
The new projects are also poised to take on the fame and high visibility of top NFT collectors, not to mention an enthusiastic crowd on social media. Even in 2024, the NFT could still be used for various forms of staking, farming, or other incentives to simply hold and never sell.
Opportunities were still only available for a handful of NFTs from top collections. NFT farming was also a transitional solution, and some platforms found it to be unsustainable. Blur, one of the most active NFT resale marketplaces with farming features, brings disappointing results in its latest Season 3 farming campaign.
With resale markets slowing, owners of valuable NFTs should generate another token or participate in a reward system. Ultimately, this required a Ponzi-like structure, with new capital flows to support the value of early entrants.
Staking only temporarily saved collections like Pudgy Penguins and Miladys, which created xDMT tokens and became eligible for the OMNI and ZK airdrops.
Is the NFT model still viable?
The days of NFTs bringing in millions of dollars and high-profile sales at art galleries may be over. But the collection-based model, holding philosophy and some form of staking could be here to stay. Even the City of Goblins the collection has not collapsed to zero, maintaining a low of 0.07 ETH and recent sales above $500.
Recently, meme token collections are also trying to offer value with NFT. Instead of holding NFTs for token airdrops, some token projects pledge NFTs to curate their collection. Later, NFT avatars can add to community loot and serve as a form of marketing.
Games continue to create NFT items, providing the possibility of long-term holding and trading. The NFT model has also extended to Ordinals and Runes, which are now trying to repeat the success of Punks and Apes.
The other big problem for NFT will be hosting the actual images, which may become the responsibility of the owners. Unlike Ordinals, NFT images require some form of hosting to display the image, although they maintain a permanent record on the blockchain.
For some NFT collections, it is precisely the irrational and senseless holding that can revive older images. Some see the NFT as the marker of a new online culture with a blockchain component. Even though the era of major NFT coins and peak prices may be over, the idea of a personal identity may be here to stay, and new projects can revive its value through tokens, scarcity or other tools.
NFTs no longer offer quick wins, but they have helped create the model of a community willing to hold without selling. Some collectors may also wait to return or rally their communities for new types of assets and investments.
