The world of non-fungible tokens has a bold past and a bright future to some people. Other people are still puzzled and confused about NFTs, or worse. What is undeniable for either group is that NFTs have been selling for hundreds of thousands and for millions of dollars. This means that NFTs have worked there way into the theme of collectibles as an alternative asset class. One exercise that deserves some work is current NFT sales, CryptoPunks versus Bored Apes.

It is without a doubt that many people are beyond puzzled here as to why digital art can attract so much money. What else is without a doubt is that the buyers of these NFTs are no longer just individuals or companies buying and selling NFTs just to prop up the next arm of the digitization of assets.

The website Nonfungible.com tracks weekly and all-time sales volumes of the top NFTs. The top three NFT classes in he last week have generated $490 million in total dollar volume over the last 7-day period alone. CryptoPunks is still the all-time leader with over $ 1 billion in sales, but the volume in the last week has been incredible.

One group which was not given a note here is the Art Blocks sales tracked by Nonfungible. That showed 12,014 transactions in the last 7-day period with over $165.8 million. Its all-time sales were $631.5 million at the same time.

Where this story gets even more interesting is that there are several NFTs up for grabs which will make some NFT-hates want to rip their hair out.

Sotheby’s has a slew of 101 NFTs from the Yuga Labs’ for the Bored Ape Yacht Club ending on September 9, 2021. The estimate is $12,000,000 to $18,000,000 for the lot. This is the same Sotheby’s that auctions off countless items within luxury assets from art, jewelry, watches and more.

As of September 1, 2021, the CryptoPunks NFTs were dominating the weekly trading volume. There had been 647 sales of “punks” in that week, with a volume of $231,828,809. That is versus an all-time sale amount of just over $1.07 billion.

Nonfungible also showed that the 7-day volume for the Bored Ape Yacht Club was $93,234,472 with a trading volume of 1,395 in the last 7 days. Its all-time sales was over $401.7 million.

Another transaction that stood out was CryptoPunk #543. As one of the first 1,000 NFT’s from developers in Larva Labs is on of the “Dev Punks.” This was being offered in fractional ownership on the Otis app for fractional ownership. Otis sells registered shares, and the $15.00 price most recently seen was up 1,300% with an asset value of $772,500. Otis even halted its trading over the volume.

When news broke of Beeple’s $69 million NFT sale through Christie’s earlier in 2021, it was more than puzzling. Its price may be up for debate about the why and the motivation behind the transaction. The trading volume now being witnessed cannot just be attributed to industry insiders and those with a vested interested interest in all-things-crypto being propped up. After you see this much money (or Ethereum) trading hands, for better or worse, the interest in NFTs is real.