Written by: BUBBLE, Cookie

After a 4-year hiatus, the "Punk Sweep" has made a comeback, with a single address spending $8 million to sweep up 46 Crypto Punks, igniting a surge in the NFT community's enthusiasm.

Not just Crypto Punks, the overall trading volume in the NFT market has warmed up again in recent days, even surpassing the peak seen in February of this year. According to data from the Coingecko platform, the total market cap of the NFT sector has increased by 29% within 24 hours, breaking through a market cap of $6.7 billion. The trading volume has skyrocketed by 372%, reaching $45 million.

Cryptocurrency seems to have abandoned the NFT sector for a long time, but the "notorious" MoonBirds has recently taken action, seemingly preparing to follow the IP path of "Pudgy Penguins." With the overall NFT market warming up and Opensea, which has not issued tokens for a long time after its official announcement, being mentioned multiple times, can we ask the question, "Is NFT Summer back?"

Four Years Later, Whales Sweep CryptoPunks

Four years ago, in July 2021, "0x65d" spent approximately $7 million to sweep up 104 CryptoPunks, marking the legendary "Punk Sweep." In March 2022, these 104 CryptoPunks were valued and auctioned at Sotheby's for $20-30 million, but "0x65d" canceled the auction twenty minutes after it started.

Fast forward four years to July 2025, "0x1bb" spent approximately $8 million to sweep up 46 Crypto Punks. Witnessing "Punk Sweep 2.0" as ETH gradually approaches its historical peak feels like a fateful cycle of the times.

The address "0x1bb351C5410b2f6BaE36a74aA6B38a9800AE72D6" used funds transferred from Coinbase Prime just a day prior for purchasing NFTs. In addition to the 46 CryptoPunks, this address also acquired 11 generative art pieces known as Chromie Squiggle. According to on-chain data, some of the funds used for purchasing NFTs were also transferred from the address "0xF1CDC3De7819f93fB93D0c52001d4Fa495Ab471D," which similarly received funds from Coinbase Prime a day earlier and purchased 19 Chromie Squiggle.

In total, "0x1bb" acquired 46 CryptoPunks and 30 Chromie Squiggle, spending approximately $8.6 million.

Currently, the identity of "0x1bb" remains a mystery; no one knows which whale or institution is behind this address. After the copyright of CryptoPunks was acquired by the Infinite Node Foundation for about $20 million in May of this year, the official Twitter account of the Infinite Node Foundation has not posted any updates, making this a "mysterious surge"—we don't know who "0x1bb" is or why they suddenly made such a significant purchase.

However, "0x1bb's" large-scale buying has clearly ignited the sentiment in the NFT market:

All Ethereum NFTs are rising (well… except Milady)

All Solana NFTs are rising

All Bitcoin NFTs are rising

Are Moonbirds Following the Penguins' Path?

The rise of Moonbirds is particularly noteworthy among all these projects. In the past week, the floor price of Moonbirds has nearly tripled. If we extend the timeline to the past three months, the floor price of Moonbirds has increased nearly elevenfold.

On May 31 of this year, Moonbirds was acquired by Orange Cap Games from Yuga Labs, and the news caused the floor price to nearly triple. After a period of adjustment, Moonbirds has entered a phase of explosive growth.

Moonbirds is currently projecting an image reminiscent of "Pudgy Penguins CTO 2.0." In 2022, after Luca Netz took over Pudgy Penguins, the team quickly went to work, revitalizing the entire IP, which has now become a top IP in the NFT space.

Orange Cap Games, which acquired Moonbirds, is also known for creating the card game "Vibes TCG" using the Pudgy Penguins IP. By the end of 2024, Orange Cap Games completed a $2 million angel round of financing, which helped bring "Vibes TCG" to life. On June 10 of this year, they announced the completion of a $3.5 million seed round of financing, led by 1kx and Yuga Labs.

In 2023, Pudgy Penguins also raised $9 million in a seed round, led by 1kx.

Spencer Gordon-Sand, the CEO of Orange Cap Games, is a well-known figure in the community; he founded Spencer Ventures, a fund focused on NFTs, back in 2022. After Orange Cap Games acquired Moonbirds, the new team quickly delivered visible changes to the community, similar to what Pudgy Penguins did back in the day:

"Spencer: In the 51 days since acquiring the entire Moonbirds collection, we have been the top daily trading volume in ETH NFTs for 5 days, confirmed an airdrop from the social app Towns, confirmed free Pokémon cards, had OpenSea's official Twitter change to our avatar, established a Telegram announcement channel with 25,000 members, allocated $1.4 million for a lottery to purchase our Telegram stickers, secured $350,000 in financing led by 1kx, hired new team members, and are about to announce more."

It can be said that Moonbirds has been liberated from the strategic contraction trend of Yuga Labs, becoming an IP that a new company is vigorously developing, evoking memories of Pudgy Penguins' earlier days as prices rise. These changes have significantly altered the fundamentals of Moonbirds.

Which Other Projects Have Seen Movement Today?

Although the recent surge in ETH has led to capital flowing into NFTs, the main driving force behind the rise remains Ethereum. However, many projects in both the Solana and Bitcoin ecosystems have also joined this wave of enthusiasm.

Solana Ecosystem

Today, Solana's official account directly showcased four NFT projects with the caption "We're so back." In fact, these four Solana NFT projects have developed in different directions within their respective fields.

Among them, Solana Monkey Business (SMB), as one of the earliest NFT projects deeply rooted in the Solana ecosystem, still tops the growth chart, with a 24-hour increase of 36%, reaching a floor price of 25 SOL, while trading volume has exceeded $650,000.

This NFT project, operated by MonkeDAO, is known for its community engagement, including innovative initiatives like running Solana validation nodes. Its core founding team members, Nom and SolportTom, are also part of the successful launch platform LetsBonk/BONK, which has effectively countered Pumpfun.

In addition, SolportTom mentioned another project he is "DeRUG" (AKA CTO) of—Taiyo Robotics, which has also seen significant growth, with a 40% increase in floor price within 24 hours, reaching 60 SOL, and trading volume exceeding $260,000, having increased tenfold in the past month. According to Tom, this is the first CTO project to emerge in the currently popular "CTO concept" within the Solana ecosystem.

Tom also shared his experience of being "forced into the CTO role." When he first entered the space, he was part of an unknown development team working for clients. At that time, they had a small BD team that would message on Discord whenever a new project was minting, offering services like deploying Candy Machine.

Later, Taiyo approached the team, expressing a desire to create a marketplace where users could purchase custom assets and replace components on their bots. They brought TOM's team into their Discord and assigned them roles, but afterward, they basically "vanished."

As a result, the community believed they were part of the team, but TOM himself was unclear about the situation. "Not wanting my reputation to be tarnished, I decided to take over the project myself, using it as a backing for community credibility to gain some goodwill."

Unlike SMB, which deeply engages with the Solana community, Claynosaurz's path resembles that of "American" Azuki. This project is led by an experienced team of animators, focusing on high-quality content creation. In the past 24 hours, trading volume reached $120,000. Claynosaurz recently won a Gold Award at the Collision Awards for its animation excellence, and team members were invited guests at one of the most renowned animation exhibitions, COMIC CON, held in San Diego, making it one of the most prominent animated NFTs in the Solana ecosystem.

The former Solana leader Mad Lads saw its floor price increase by 20% within 24 hours, returning to 40 SOL. The established NFT project Galactic Geckos also experienced remarkable growth, with its floor price nearly doubling in 24 hours, now quoted at 6.5 SOL.

Ordinals Ecosystem

The Ordinals ecosystem has been quiet for a long time but has stirred some waves recently. Besides NodeMonkes, which saw a 30% increase in floor price in a single day (though still far from its ATH), the current leader in the Ordinals ecosystem, Taproot Wizard, is just 6 listings away from reaching its ATH again. Given the increasingly expensive Bitcoin, the floor price has already reached $25,000. Not to mention, purchasing an NFT still costs "digital gold" Bitcoin, making it hard not to think that Taproot Wizard's next plans may far exceed just being a "community."

As more NFT projects and old OGs are "revived," does this wave of NFT enthusiasm signify that the NFT space can gain recognition from the capital market, becoming a channel for bull market capital overflow, or will it ultimately be yet another fleeting moment after countless attempts at revival?

We cannot know, just as we do not know how long "is coming" really means for OpenSea.

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