Four years later, the "Punk Sweep" has reappeared, with a single address spending $8 million to sweep up 46 CryptoPunks, completely igniting the enthusiasm of the NFT community.

Not just CryptoPunks, the overall trading volume of the NFT market has warmed up again in recent days, even surpassing the peak in February of this year. According to data from the Coingecko platform, the total market capitalization 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, Big Players Sweep CryptoPunks

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

Related: "Why Was the Sotheby's Auction of 104 CryptoPunks Canceled?"

Four years later, in July 2025, "0x1bb" spent about $8 million to sweep up 46 CryptoPunks. Seeing "Punk Sweep 2.0" as ETH gradually approaches its historical high feels like a fateful cycle of the times.

The address "0x1bb351C5410b2f6BaE36a74aA6B38a9800AE72D6" used funds transferred from Coinbase Prime a day ago to purchase NFTs. In addition to the 46 CryptoPunks, this address also purchased 11 generative art pieces, Chromie Squiggle. According to on-chain data, some of the funds used to purchase NFTs were also transferred from the address "0xF1CDC3De7819f93fB93D0c52001d4Fa495Ab471D," which similarly had its funds transferred from Coinbase Prime a day ago and purchased 19 Chromie Squiggles.

In total, "0x1bb" acquired 46 CryptoPunks and 30 Chromie Squiggles, 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 of the Infinite Node Foundation has not updated any tweets since, making this a "mysterious surge"—we don't know who "0x1bb" is or why they suddenly made such a large purchase.

However, "0x1bb's" significant buying clearly ignited the sentiment in the NFT market:

Ethereum NFTs are rising across the board (well… except for Milady)

Solana NFTs are rising across the board

Bitcoin NFTs are rising across the board

Are Moonbirds Following the Path of Penguins?

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 exploded.

Moonbirds is currently conveying an image of "Pudgy Penguins CTO 2.0." In 2022, after Luca Netz took over Pudgy Penguins, the team quickly went to work, refreshing 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 completed a $9 million seed round of financing, which was led by 1kx.

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

"Spencer: In the 51 days since acquiring the entire Moonbirds series, 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 in its heyday while also seeing a price increase. These changes have significantly altered the fundamentals of Moonbirds.

What Other Projects Have Seen Movement Today?

Although the recent rise in ETH has led to funds flowing into NFTs, the main force driving this increase remains Ethereum. However, both the Solana and Bitcoin ecosystems have seen several projects riding this wave of enthusiasm.

Solana Ecosystem

Solana's official account today directly posted images of 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 occupies the top spot in terms of growth, with a 24-hour increase of 36%, reaching a floor price of 25 SOL, while trading volume has surpassed $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 founding team of the successful launch platform LetsBonk/BONK, which has effectively countered Pumpfun.

In addition, SolportTom mentioned another project he "DeRUGed" (AKA CTO) — 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 Solana ecosystem, which is currently popular with the "CTO concept."

Tom also shared his experience of being "forced into the CTO role." When he first entered the space, he was part of a relatively unknown development team working for clients. At that time, they had a small BD team that would message on Discord during each new project's MINT, 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 it. "Not wanting my reputation to be tarnished, I decided to take over the project myself, using it as a credibility endorsement for the community to gain some goodwill."

Unlike SMB, which is deeply rooted in 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, with trading volume reaching $120,000 in the past 24 hours. Claynosaurz recently won a Gold Award at the Collision Awards for its animation excellence, and team members also participated as invited guests at one of the most renowned animation exhibitions, COMIC CON, held in San Diego, becoming one of the most prominent animated NFTs in the Solana ecosystem.

Meanwhile, 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, with NodeMonkes seeing 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, excluding a few "FOMO" Bitcoin purchases right after launch. At today's increasingly expensive Bitcoin prices, the floor price has already reached $25,000, not to mention that purchasing an NFT 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 represent a recognition of the NFT space by the capital market, becoming a channel for funds to overflow during a bull market, or is it yet another fleeting moment after countless attempts at revival?

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

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