The only rally during Bitcoin 2026 was Ethereum NFTs

During the world’s largest Bitcoin conference, Ethereum NFTs have, ironically, provided one of only a few green shoots on red-filled crypto dashboards.

Bitcoin’s biggest annual conference opened on Monday in Las Vegas with bitcoin ($BTC) above $78,600 and tens of thousands of attendees packing into the Venetian conference center to hear why it should be worth more.

Three days later, $BTC was below $75,000.

Over the three-day conference, every top 10 digital asset was negative except for memecoin DOGE. Far lower down the leaderboard, however, Ethereum $NFT collections from the 2021 bull run rallied.

Bored Ape Yacht Club climbed 17% over the past seven days, while its two derivatives, Mutant Ape Yacht Club and Bored Ape Kennel Club, rallied 25% and 53%, respectively.

Pudgy Penguins added 15%, Azuki NFTs rallied 34%, Doodles gained 27%, and Clone X was up 16%.

The Bitcoin conference’s institutional speaker lineup, reportedly drawing more than 40,000 attendees across three days — even though many received free GA passes — was supposed to deliver a flurry of bullish headlines. Instead, it became a classic sell-the-news event.

Meanwhile, over on Bitcoin’s largest competitor Ethereum, five-year-old cartoon apes became one of the best-performing trades in crypto.

Virtual land NFTs: Average trading volumes down 98% since $ATH

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Percentage gains are easy from a low base

The reality, of course, is that the entire $NFT market cap is now $1.9 billion, down from a peak exceeding $17 billion in April 2022.

So although NFTs have performed well over the last month, they’re still well beneath their previous highs.

Moreover, NFTs are now a thinly-traded asset class with high mark-to-market capitalizations that require very little purchases to move collection valuations substantially.

Worse, wash trading accounts for roughly $24 million of the $48 million total $NFT trading volume over the past week.

Indeed, the rally is almost purely a floor-price phenomenon that’s thinly justified by real purchases. Over the last 30 days on just $125 million of non-wash traded volume, including liquidations and sales at lower prices, the total market cap of NFTs has increased $480 million.

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