NFT market rebounds as Bitcoin NFTs dominate and $X@AI collection rewrites the leaderboard
Global NFT trading is roaring back, with weekly sales volume jumping 37.4% to 88.29 million dollars, up from 65.58 million dollars just a week earlier. Activity is not only higher in dollar terms: the number of participants and transactions is also expanding, signaling a broad-based recovery rather than a one-off spike.
Buyer numbers climbed 22.9% to 342,044, while sellers increased 24.17% to 242,004. Overall NFT transactions rose 10.54%, reaching 937,495 deals over the week. This combination of more users, more trades, and higher volume suggests renewed confidence across the sector.
Bitcoin flips Ethereum in NFT sales
The most striking shift comes from the blockchains powering this activity. Bitcoin has surged into the top spot for NFT sales, overtaking Ethereum for the week.
– Bitcoin NFT sales: 29.95 million dollars, up 144.41% from 12.12 million dollars
– Ethereum NFT sales: 27.57 million dollars, still up a strong 39.08% from 20.88 million dollars
On Bitcoin, wash trading was negligible relative to total activity, with about 44,381 dollars flagged as artificial volume, nudging overall sales to roughly 29.99 million dollars. Buyers on Bitcoin-based NFT collections rose 25.29% to 11,948, underscoring that this is not just a whale-led phenomenon but a growing ecosystem of participants.
Ethereum, historically the home of blue-chip collections, continues to perform well but has lost the weekly crown. It registered 3.24 million dollars in wash trading alongside 27.57 million dollars in volume, with the number of buyers improving 22.13% to 23,570.
$X@AI BRC-20: the week’s breakout phenomenon
The standout story behind Bitcoin’s rise is the explosive performance of $X@AI BRC-20 NFTs. This collection has rocketed into first place with 23.14 million dollars in weekly sales — a staggering 1,099.81% increase.
What makes this surge even more remarkable is how concentrated the trading was:
– Just 12 transactions
– 12 buyers and 12 sellers
– One enormous deal dominating the numbers
A single $X@AI BRC-20 NFT changed hands for 17.13 million dollars, equivalent to 195.0081 BTC, setting a new benchmark for high-value Bitcoin NFT trades. Two additional $X@AI NFTs followed behind, reinforcing the collection’s role as the main engine of Bitcoin’s weekly NFT dominance.
This pattern of ultra-high-value, low-transaction-count activity hints at a market driven by institutional-sized buyers or highly capitalized collectors, rather than retail flippers. It also highlights how a single marquee sale can reshape weekly leaderboard statistics in a still-maturing market.
Top NFT collections of the week
Behind the $X@AI phenomenon, several established and emerging collections battled for volume:
– DMarket (Mythos Chain) slid to second place with 6.04 million dollars in sales, still a solid 14.37% gain from 5.32 million dollars the previous week. It saw intense activity with 166,295 transactions, 14,191 buyers, and 11,431 sellers, pointing to a broad, highly liquid market.
– YES BOND (BNB Chain) climbed into third with 2.72 million dollars in volume, up 24.76% from 2.15 million dollars. The collection processed 2,221 transactions involving 1,872 buyers, but only 2 sellers, an unusual distribution that suggests extremely concentrated supply and potentially long-term holders unloading selectively into demand.
– CryptoPunks (Ethereum) secured fourth place with 2.69 million dollars in sales, a 6.93% increase from 2.51 million dollars. The collection recorded 31 transactions, 23 buyers, and 26 sellers, consistent with its status as a thinly traded but high-value blue-chip segment of the NFT market.
– Pudgy Penguins (Ethereum) surged into fifth at 2.39 million dollars, jumping 52.12% week-on-week. With 191 transactions, 109 buyers, and 107 sellers, Pudgy Penguins continues to prove its staying power as a community-driven collection that also draws speculative interest.
– Courtyard (Polygon) fell sharply to sixth, logging 2.19 million dollars in sales — a steep 56.09% decline from the prior week’s 4.99 million dollars. Even with the drop in volume, the collection saw 35,920 transactions, indicating active trading at lower average price points.
Blockchain rankings: beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum
While Bitcoin and Ethereum still dominate mindshare, the broader NFT landscape spans multiple chains, each with its own growth narrative and user base.
BNB Chain (BNB)
BNB Chain held third place among blockchains with 7.00 million dollars in NFT sales. That’s a 10.70% decline from 7.77 million dollars the previous week, but buyer numbers tell a different story: they increased 19.95% to 49,296. Wash trading remained minimal at 4,090 dollars, suggesting organic volume with a growing retail user base, even as average deal sizes or prices dipped.
Mythos Chain
Mythos ranked fourth with 6.17 million dollars in NFT volume, up 15.31% from 5.46 million dollars. It attracted 34,085 buyers, a strong 43.58% jump. Paired with DMarket’s performance on Mythos, this underlines the chain’s role as a hub for high-frequency, often gaming-related digital asset trading.
Immutable (IMX)
Immutable landed in fifth place with 3.26 million dollars in sales, barely up 0.73% from 3.20 million dollars. The modest volume gain contrasts with a 24.09% surge in buyers to 6,037, hinting that demand is spreading across a larger base of participants even if headline dollar figures are lagging.
Base
Base stormed into sixth position with 3.11 million dollars in weekly volume, an impressive 111.10% increase. Paradoxically, wash trading on Base totaled about 4.87 million dollars, exceeding the reported sales amount and signaling intense artificial activity. Still, buyers rose 12.61% to 86,317, indicating real user interest alongside speculative or manipulative behavior.
Polygon (POL)
Polygon dropped to seventh with 3.09 million dollars in NFT sales, a steep 49.42% fall from 6.06 million dollars. Yet buyer numbers again tell a nuanced story: 73,483 buyers, up 34.89%. This combination — more buyers but less overall volume — suggests lower price points, smaller tickets, or a rotation away from high-value Polygon collections during the week.
Solana (SOL)
Solana ranked eighth with 2.89 million dollars in NFT sales, essentially flat with a 2.83% move from the prior week’s 2.93 million dollars. Buyers increased 15.14% to 38,162, pointing to a healthy base of collectors and traders even in a sideways volume environment.
What is driving the NFT rebound?
Several trends help explain why NFT volumes and participation are rising simultaneously:
1. Renewed interest in Bitcoin-native assets
The rapid growth of Bitcoin-based standards, including BRC-20 and inscription-style NFTs, is unlocking new demand among collectors who previously focused on Ethereum and other chains. The symbolic appeal of holding scarce digital assets on Bitcoin is a powerful narrative, especially when supported by headline-grabbing sales like the 17.13 million dollar $X@AI trade.
2. Broadening user base across mid-tier chains
Chains such as BNB, Mythos, Polygon, Base, Immutable, and Solana are showing rising buyer counts, even when volumes fluctuate. This indicates that NFTs are no longer confined to a single ecosystem. Lower fees and specialized use cases (like gaming and in-app assets) help onboard new users who may not have participated during the earlier, Ethereum-centric boom.
3. Shift from hype to utility and brand-building
Collections like Pudgy Penguins and DMarket are benefiting from ongoing brand expansion, gaming integration, and merchandising, rather than pure speculation. This trend supports more sustainable demand, as buyers increasingly look for tangible engagement or long-term narratives tied to their NFTs.
The role and risk of wash trading
Wash trading — the practice of buying and selling the same asset to artificially inflate volume or prices — remains a concern across NFT markets. The weekly data illustrates that:
– Some chains, like Bitcoin and BNB Chain, show very low levels of wash trading relative to total volume.
– Others, such as Base, register wash volume that even exceeds reported sales, signaling aggressive incentives or reward farming that can distort the true picture of demand.
For traders and collectors, this means raw volume rankings can be misleading. Chains with high wash activity may look vibrant but could be driven disproportionately by short-term schemes rather than genuine market interest. Evaluating buyer counts, transaction numbers, and distribution of trades across addresses is increasingly important when assessing the health of any NFT ecosystem.
Why Bitcoin’s NFT moment matters
Bitcoin overtaking Ethereum in weekly NFT sales is more than a statistical novelty. It marks a shift in how the market perceives Bitcoin’s capabilities:
– From “store of value only” to multi-layer asset platform:
The rise of BRC-20 and inscription-based collections shows that Bitcoin can host a thriving digital collectible economy via layered solutions, even if it was not designed for complex smart contracts.
– New competition for high-end collectibles:
Ultra-high-value trades, like the 195.0081 BTC $X@AI sale, could carve out a niche where Bitcoin becomes the preferred settlement layer for trophy assets, while other chains dominate for high-frequency, lower-value trading.
– Network effects and narrative power:
As more influential collectors and institutions engage with Bitcoin NFTs, the social and financial capital around these assets can grow rapidly, reinforcing the chain’s new role in the broader NFT hierarchy.
What this means for collectors and investors
For participants trying to interpret these numbers and plan their next moves, several takeaways stand out:
– Diversification across chains is becoming essential.
No single blockchain now fully defines the NFT market. Bitcoin is capturing the high-end spotlight, Ethereum maintains deep liquidity and blue chips, and alternative chains are onboarding the next wave of users.
– Headline volumes can hide concentration risk.
The week’s data shows how a small number of large $X@AI trades can dominate overall figures. Investors should look beyond total sales and examine transaction counts, holder distribution, and floor prices to gauge actual market depth.
– User growth often precedes price growth.
Chains like Polygon and Immutable are seeing strong increases in buyers even as dollar volumes lag or decline. This pattern can sometimes foreshadow later price appreciation if user engagement translates into sustained demand.
– Understanding wash trading is part of due diligence.
When volume is heavily influenced by wash trades, price signals can be unreliable. Market participants should be cautious on chains and collections where reported activity and organic behavior appear out of sync.
Outlook for the NFT market
The combination of a 37.4% jump in weekly NFT sales, expanding user participation, and a reshuffling of blockchain rankings suggests that the sector is entering a new, more complex phase:
– High-profile, record-breaking deals on Bitcoin are reshaping the narrative around where premier digital assets live.
– Established Ethereum collections remain central to the ecosystem, but competition for both creators and collectors is intensifying.
– Gaming- and utility-focused chains such as Mythos and Immutable are building out ecosystems that rely less on hype and more on recurring engagement.
– Layer-2 and alternative networks are experimenting with new incentive models — some healthy, some distortionary — that influence short-term volumes but may not always translate to lasting value.
In this environment, the most resilient strategies tend to focus on fundamentals: the strength of a collection’s community, the credibility of its creators, the chain’s user experience and costs, and the long-term utility or cultural significance of the assets themselves. The latest data confirms that NFTs are far from dead; instead, they are evolving, fragmenting, and increasingly reflecting the broader dynamics of the multi-chain crypto economy.