Major NFT collections register a drop in ETH floor prices, but there’s a catch

The Ethereum ($ETH) floor price of the five biggest non-fungible token ($NFT) collections has slumped in the last 30 days, according to data aggregator $NFT Price Floor. The NFTs from Bored Ape Yacht Club collection took the hardest hit, with a 26.6% pullback on $ETH price.

Pudgy Penguins, which dominated the traded volume within the Top 5 collections, fell 10.3% in the same period. Meanwhile, CryptoPunks was the most successful collection at holding ground in $ETH, limiting the pullback to less than 7%. Autoglyphs and Chromie Squiggle, the remaining two of the five largest $NFT collections by market cap, fell 8% and 9.5%, respectively.

The losses in $ETH-denominated price happened at the same time the traded volume of Ethereum-based $NFT collections rose by over 50% in traded volume, reaching $660 million.

Despite the fall in $ETH value, the dollar-denominated price of all five collections went up. Nicolás Lallement, $NFT Price Floor co-founder, explains that this is a common market dynamic.

When it comes to $NFT prices, investors usually debate the price of collections considered blue chips in $ETH, and their correlation with the altcoin. “As some have suggested ‘1 $ETH ≠ 1 $ETH,’ meaning the investor decision process is the following: 1) Check the current $ETH price of the $NFT; 2) Check the current USD price of the $NFT; 3) Check $ETH/USD price history of the $NFT; 4) Decide based on USD current price of the $NFT,” says Lallement.

Over the past 30 days, $ETH surged 62.6%, fueled by Bitcoin’s price growth and by expectations over the approval of a spot $ETH exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the US. Lallement highlights that the Dencun upgrade, which is set to happen on March 13th and promises to lower the gas fees for Ethereum layer-2 blockchains, is also playing an important role in $ETH price jump.

“That means if $ETH goes higher in USD terms, NFTs go higher in USD terms too, and $ETH-denominated prices will have to lower to reach equilibrium again. The $NFT bull in $ETH terms will have to wait, in my opinion. We are still in a speculative phase where most of the attention is on low-value Solana-based NFTs and Ordinals,” Lallement concludes.