TL;DR
In a year when the NFT market overall has steadily declined in total value, with many legacy projects hard hit, there have still been a few projects making price gains across the year to date. Looking across various chains, notably profitable collections include Bitcoin Puppets, Milady Maker on Ethereum, Retardio Cousins on Solana, and Trump Digital Trading Cards on Polygon. Additionally, several collections have brought value to holders through providing eligibility for airdrop allocations.
2024 has been positive for Bitcoin, and usually when BTC rises the rest of crypto follows. That means there have been plenty of opportunities to profit, including in niches like AI tokens and memecoins, but how about NFTs?
Since the NFT bubble of 2021/22, many projects have crashed out completely, while even the highest tier collections have endured steep price corrections. So have there been any profits on the table from NFTs HODLed across the year so far? The answer to that is yes, but you needed to be very selective in your buying.
Which NFTs YTD Have Made Money?
The CryptoSlam 500 NFT Index, which charts the state of the NFT market based on the top 500 collections across chains, shows a marked decline across the year to date.
However, against this backdrop, there are a few outliers that have been profitable holds, so let’s look across the major chains at which collections have gained in value.
Bitcoin
As the Bitcoin NFT landscape is relatively new (Ordinals Protocol launched at the start of 2023), it’s felt at times like it has more upside potential overall compared to other NFT ecosystems, which has resulted in some big price surges. On the whole though, those highs haven’t been sustained, but there are a few performers that have remained profitable YTD, including:
- Bitcoin Puppets. These PFPs launched in January and were initially trading at around 0.02 BTC that month, but are priced from 0.09 BTC now, having hit an ATH of 0.48 BTC in April. A memecoin called PUPS was inspired by Bitcoin Puppets, but there’s no official connection between the two.
- OPIUM: This collection predates Bitcoin Puppets but comes from the same creator, and has risen from a 0.06 BTC floor price in January to 0.12 BTC right now, although that current price is much lower than the April ATH of 0.64 BTC.
- Pizza Ninjas: Considered a central Ordinals collection, Pizza Ninjas has registered a small YTD increase from 0.06 BTC to 0.092 BTC, but with an ATH of 0.2 BTC along the way.
Ethereum
A couple of years ago, Ethereum was the central chain when it came to NFTs, and almost all of the many collections that hit insane floor prices were Ethereum-based, including both PFPs and generative art drops. However, that means that while some collections–big names such as BAYC and CryptoPunks–still have relatively large price tags in dollar terms (even post-crash, a Bored Ape will currently set you back almost $25,000), ETH NFTs are down across the board YTD, and are very far away from old ATHs.
That said, here are three Ethereum collections that you’d be in profit on now had you bought at the start of January:
- Milady Maker: If the most robust NFT collections have a cult-like vibe, then Milady Maker should be fine no matter the market conditions, as it’s the most cultish and controversial project out there, and has gone from 2.56 ETH to 3.88 ETH this year, with a 5.795 ETH ATH last month.
- Pirate Nation Founder’s Pirate: As part of the Pirate Nation Web3 game, these are PFPs with utility, and have this year gone from 0.33 ETH to 1.1 ETH, hitting a 1.6 ETH ATH in July.
- Kaiju Kingz: This OG PFP collection has gone from 0.078 ETH to 0.11 ETH this year, with YTD ATH of 0.34 ETH in February.
Solana
2024 has been all about memecoins, with an explosion of new tokens driving the on-chain casino and Solana becoming the network where much of this activity takes place. However, meme tokens are in some ways similar to NFTs–operating at the fringes and powered by attention–and it’s possible that crypto liquidity that might previously have flowed into NFTs has now been rotating instead into meme tokens.
That in mind, while there are some Solana NFT projects that are still active and collectible–Mad Lads is the biggest name–floor prices across the ecosystem are down YTD, although there is one recent exception.
- Retardio Cousins: Clearly not one for the easily offended, this memecoin-related collection launched in April this year and has gone from an initial price of 0.8 SOL, to a 19.3 SOL floor price right now. Notably, Retardio Cousins looks like and directly references Milady Maker, but turns all the dials up to eleven.
Polygon
And finally, let’s cross over to the Polygon blockchain to find a collection that has–due in part to an intensely fractured political atmosphere during an often chaotic election run-up–managed to turn a profit this year.
- Trump Digital Trading Cards: This collection from former and possibly-next president Donald Trump has risen in price this year from 328 MATIC to 596 MATIC, with a YTD ATH of 763 MATIC in February.
Profiting from NFT Airdrops
There is another way that NFTs have been profitable this year, and it’s not through flipping them for gains. Instead, there are some collections that have been magnets for token airdrops, meaning that holding them has brought significant profit potential.
This was covered in more detail here previously, but top collections in this regard include Mad Lads, Milady Maker (which has both floor price gains and airdrops in its favor), and Pudgy Penguins, with potential airdrop values this year reaching as high as over $36,000 for Mad Lads holders.
