Bored Ape mania spreads, OpenSea NFT transactions surge

Data shows that OpenSea has generated more than $700 million in sales this year, putting the NFT market on track for another new high this month.

Non-fungible token (NFT) volumes on OpenSea have been surging in January amid a renewed speculative frenzy by Yuga Labs’ “Bored Ape Yacht Club” (BAYC) and “Mutant Ape Yacht Club” (MAYC) .

According to data published by Rchen8 on Dune Analytics, OpenSea has generated more than $700 million worth of transactions since 2022, with Monday being the biggest day of the year with a 24-hour volume of $255.8 million.

While popular observers, such as Wu Blockchain, asserted that Monday’s transaction volume was an all-time high for OpenSea, data previously published by Rchen8 on Dune Analytics showed an all-time high (ATH) of $322 million on August 29.

In December, OpenSea’s monthly trading volume was as high as $3.24 billion, just 5.3% shy of the platform’s ATH of $3.42 billion in August. This NFT market has already generated over $700 million worth of trading volume in the first four days of January, and if the momentum continues throughout the month, it could soon break record highs.

Bored Ape Mania

One factor contributing to the surge in OpenSea volumes has been the recent frenzy surrounding BAYC and MAYC NFTs and a basket of other projects from Yuga Labs.

Data from CryptoSlam shows that MAYC is currently the top NFT project in the secondary market last week in terms of transaction volume, with $93.2 million, followed by BAYC NFT with $88.4 million.

Over the past 30 days, MAYC and BAYC projects have generated $189.7 million and $182.6 million, respectively. As of this writing, they are the third and fourth largest NFT series.

In terms of 24-hour trading volume, MAYC has generated $18.7 million worth of secondary trading volume, while BAYC has generated $14 million. According to OpenSea data, the current floor price of BAYC NFT is 67 ETH, worth about $250,000, while the current floor price of MAYC NFT is 15.87 ETH, or about $59,300.

Since January, pop culture icons such as rapper Eminem, musician Britney Spears and comedian Dave Chappelle have reportedly snapped up BAYC NFTs for six-figure sums this month.

“Big news: @DaveChappelle just bought @BoredApeYC #8343 for 99 ETH ($371343.06), welcome to join

He created the wallet today, holding the ENS domain name davidchappelle.eth, and had him mint it two hours ago.

Ironically, his OpenSea name is 'FollowtheWhitePeople'"

— m0rgan.eth??♀? (@Helloimmorgan) January 2, 2022. (Cointelegraph)