NFT Quick Hits - July 2023

Pudgy Penguins continue their two-pronged approach to building digital infrastructure and furthering their brand in the physical world. Pudgys launched PudgySwap, an OTC trading application that makes it easier to sell high-end NFTs, as OTC trades are coming back in vogue. Over the last 8 months, the Pudgy Penguins team has had numerous in-person events, including NFT Paris, Art Basel, Toy Fair,  NFT NYC, Veecon, ETH Denver, Sweet Suite, Licensing Expo, and San Diego Comic Con. Pudgy Penguin Toys were also featured in Rolling Stone magazine.

Despite NFT trading volumes reaching a two year low-point in July, we are seeing lots of tooling, infrastructure, and games that are launching which makes NFTs easier to create, collect, and use that we believe will help them reach a broader audience. Sound.xyz, a music NFT exchange, is now allowing any artist to sell music NFTs on their platform. We believe music NFTs are a promising use case in the digital collectibles category with potential to disrupt licensing and the economics of digital streaming. 

There have been a number of high-end NFT sales this past month, including most recently at Sotheby’s which saw the sale of:

-Fidenza #290: $279,400

-Wild White CryptoPunk 4153: $254,000

-Fidenza #203: $241,300

-Ringers #502: $152,400

-Ringers #978: $139,700

-Seerlight "Lantern Festival": $76,200

There were also some high-end sales in CryptoPunks NFTs, an early, high-status NFT project among crypto natives, as a $3.5 million dollar trade for 16 Punks (roughly $220,000 per Punk) caused a spike in trading activity.