After four years of silence, NFTs are staging a hardcore renaissance through "de-JPEG-ification"
Author: Ma He, Foresight News
On September 28, the well-known meme coin trader Ansem said in a video interview that he is optimistic about the return of NFTs in this cycle. Art NFTs are expected to surge again, but what is more noteworthy are the innovative experiments around the NFT format itself, including AI Agent integration, ownership mechanisms, new issuance methods, and diverse ways of connecting NFTs with on-chain products. Ansem believes that the current on-chain capital rotation is still in its early stages, and the creative space in the NFT field has not yet been fully unleashed.
According to OpenSea data, in mid-to-late September, the floor price of the well-known NFT collection CryptoPunks rose from about 29 ETH to about 34 ETH.
Mad Lads on the Solana chain also performed impressively, with its floor price rising from 6.6 SOL in mid-September to above 12 SOL at one point, nearly doubling.
Does the rise in floor prices of some NFTs signal that the NFT craze will really make a comeback?
Two months ago, there was a completely different view. Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi said in a July interview: some things in the industry will not come back; "If you are still sitting there holding NFTs, waiting for the next NFT cycle, then you should let it go and put your time, capital, and talent elsewhere." When Dragonfly completed fundraising of about $650 million for its fourth fund in February, it also positioned the new fund more clearly toward stablecoins, DeFi, and prediction markets, and wrote that "non-financial crypto has failed."
Weekly sales volume is only in the tens of millions of dollars, while at the peak single-day volume was in the hundreds of millions
CryptoSlam data shows that in the seven days ending September 26, global NFT sales were about $55.51 million, up 57.17% from the previous week; but the previous week (ending September 19) was only about $37.54 million, and the week of August 29 was about $63.33 million. In other words, as of late September, CryptoSlam's seven-day rolling sales were still in the tens of millions of dollars range, far below the NFT mania period of 2021-2022. Weekly spikes often came from a small number of high-priced transactions rather than a broad recovery.
The distribution across chains is similarly concentrated. In the week of September 26, Ethereum accounted for about $30.33 million, more than half; Polygon about $7.44 million, and Bitcoin about $5.13 million. On the collectibles side, CryptoPunks ranked first with about $8.24 million in weekly sales, 85 transactions, 62 buyer addresses, and 55 seller addresses - the top is moving, but not many addresses are participating.
The longer cycle is even colder. In July this year, BlockchainDose cited CryptoSlam statistics saying that 2025 NFT annual transaction volume was about $5.5 billion, down about 37% from 2024 and more than 90% below the 2021 peak; art was even worse: DappRadar data shows that digital art transactions fell from about $2.9 billion in 2021 to $197 million in 2024, with only about $23.8 million left in the first quarter of 2025.
The market is still there, but it has narrowed from a mass speculative market into a narrow gate.
In addition, the floor prices of most mainstream NFTs are still far below historical highs.
ETH is currently quoted at $2,670, yet the once-dominant NFT collections are still far from recovering to historical highs.
BAYC's situation illustrates the problem best. The NFT brand that once claimed it wanted to build a Web3 Disney now has "the brand still there, but pricing power and liquidity in the market have been significantly weakened." On September 28, Blockstream CEO Adam Back commented on the ape that Justin Bieber bought in January 2022 for 500 ETH (about $1.3 million at the time), saying that this thing is now worth zero or even negative value - because selling it still incurs costs.
Pudgy needs to be viewed separately. The penguin JPEG floor is about 3.28 ETH, and the full collection's market value is about $70-80 million; the token PENGU is fluctuating around $0.009, with a circulating market value of about $5.77 [sic], down about 86% from its historical high in December 2024. The liquidity of the brand narrative has already shifted more to the token rather than the NFT.
All three conditions have changed
Haseeb's judgment corresponds to three sets of facts that have already occurred.
The one-time conditions of the 2021 boom are gone. That round was layered with the wealth effect of altcoin mania, staying at home during the pandemic, ERC-721 just beginning to be understood by the public, and celebrities entering the space to create a status competition. An avatar was social currency, and the floor was faith. This combination is very difficult to replicate exactly. Retail's main battlefield this round is memes and tokenized stocks, not the avatar walls on OpenSea.
Demand did not keep up with supply. At the Dragonfly Fund III stage, NFTs, blockchain games, and DAOs were still written into the thesis; Fund IV shifted toward financial infrastructure. In public discussions around February, Haseeb repeatedly said: users were not scared away by regulation or scams, they simply did not want those consumer-grade Web3 products. Games, social, creator tokens, PFP brands - money and talent were all thrown at them, but demand did not pick up.
The liquidity of old blue chips has already thinned to the point where it cannot support the word "cycle." BAYC has three transactions a day, and the floors of Azuki, Doodles, and CloneX no longer perform the function of blue-chip pricing. If an asset class has only tens of millions of dollars in weekly transactions and is highly concentrated in a few collections such as Punks, then it is not waiting for a bull market, but waiting for the next phase of concentrated buying-driven rally.
Alternatively, NFTs may continue to spill over along physical consumer goods, IP licensing, and retail channels, such as the still-active Pudgy. The market is willing to price the brand, but not necessarily willing to give the image itself 2021-style liquidity again.
So, will the craze come back?
NFTs in 2021 essentially sold scarcity, identity, social capital, and wealth effect, but today's capital markets increasingly value yield, liquidity, composability, tradability, and cash flow. The problem with JPEGs is not that no one likes them, but that they cannot beat financial assets in capital efficiency.
In fact, from a broader cycle perspective, NFTs are undergoing a cruel but necessary "de-bubbling" process. Looking back at the evolution of NFTs, we can clearly see three stages:
- Stage one (2021): The market speculated on pure consensus, mainstream breakthrough, and celebrity effect; avatars were social currency.
- Stage two (2024-2025): NFTs once degenerated into "shovels" and tools for early interaction and airdrop farming on many new public chains, becoming accessories for obtaining tokens.
- Stage three: The market has fully returned to the essence of "what is the asset useful for and how should the financial gameplay be designed."
This transformation is not a bad thing. Only after squeezing out the illusory image bubble can the industry truly begin to seriously examine mechanism design and innovation.
If "craze" refers to the 2021 kind - celebrities changing avatars, floor prices updated daily, and any JPEG being treated as an asset that would appreciate - then existing data does not support that it is coming back, nor that it will come back in its original form.
If NFTs really can "come back," perhaps the more likely scenario is: using the NFT shell to carry RWA, fees, and agents.
Punks Punks is getting closer and closer to a "digital artifact" pricing logic. In December 2025, the Museum of Modern Art in New York even acquired 8 CryptoPunks NFTs, including CryptoPunks 4018, 2786, 5616, 5160, 3407, 7178, 74, and 7899. Brand collections such as BAYC and Azuki have long been in a state where people list them and occasionally someone buys.
What did the old blue chips that survived bull and bear markets do right?
Pudgy Penguins is definitely one of the representative NFTs among old blue chips that has survived both bull and bear markets.
If CryptoPunks can still maintain a firm floor price because it completely abandoned the utility narrative and moved entirely toward an unreplicable "digital artifact" pricing logic, then Pudgy Penguins broke through because it completely escaped the narrow zero-sum game within Web3.
Although the penguin JPEG floor price is currently hovering around 3.28 ETH, it has still been able to maintain relatively high activity and热度 over the past year or two, with multiple factors creating a chemical reaction.
Pudgy Penguins NFTs have also collaborated with multiple crypto protocols on avatar marketing to keep热度 alive. According to historical data, this includes top exchanges such as Coinbase, Binance US, OKX, and Kraken, covering almost all mainstream trading platforms in North America and globally. In addition, mainstream crypto wallets and payment brands such as Phantom, Ledger, and MoonPay are also included.
Pudgy Penguins is no longer a simple PFP (profile picture) speculative play, but has evolved into a super IP with extremely strong "cultural infection" and "sense of safety."
In addition, Pudgy Penguins NFTs have also been selected multiple times by some crypto protocols as airdrop-qualified NFTs. The rise in its own token price has also provided considerable support for its popularity and floor price.
However, this can no longer represent the brand's true business landscape.
The real winner logic lies in its penetration along physical consumer goods, IP licensing, and retail channels. Pudgy Penguins' physical toys have been fully stocked in thousands of mainstream retailers across the United States, including Walmart, Target, and Walgreens, with cumulative sales exceeding one million units, generating more than $10 million in physical retail revenue.
The core of what Pudgy Penguins did right lies in the "decoupling of liquidity and brand": they released the brand narrative and high-frequency trading liquidity to the token PENGU, which has a huge circulating market value and daily trading volume often in the hundreds of millions of dollars, while turning the original NFT into a "super VIP credential" at the core of the brand. While other old blue chips are still waiting on OpenSea for buyers, Pudgy Penguins has already achieved two-way monetization in real money through Web2 physical shelves and Web3 secondary-market tokens.
Typical representatives of new-form NFTs: Quotrons and StonkBrokers
Robinhood Chain not only attracted meme coin traders after launching, but innovation around the fusion of NFTs and RWA is also happening simultaneously.
According to OpenSea data, the popular NFTs on Robinhood Chain still fall into three categories: one is culture / meme PFPs, such as Hashcats, Cash Cats, and Rekt Tradooor; one is protocol / brand equity NFTs (Chain Mancers, Goat Street); but the most popular and highest-volume is the third category, stock container NFT-Fi, such as Quotrons, StonkBrokers, and RH Machines.
What truly shifted market attention on Robinhood Chain from new chains issuing new images to "what else can NFTs do" are Quotrons and StonkBrokers. The two look completely different - one is a 1960s Wall Street quote terminal, and the other is a pixel-style stockbroker - but underneath they are doing the same thing: turning an NFT from a transferable image into a container that can hold assets, distribute fees, and transfer the position along with it when sold.
First, the difference from past NFTs. In the mainstream blue chips from 2021 to 2022 - Punks, BAYC, Pudgy and the like - value came from community, avatar recognition, and subsequent IP. The JPEG itself did not generate cash flow. In between there was a round of GameFi, which sustained holders with continuously issued game tokens, but the result was mostly inflation smashing through the floor. Later NFT-Fi, including NFTX, Sudoswap, BendDAO, and Blend, added leverage and liquidity to existing images to facilitate entry and exit, but did not make the assets themselves able to earn money.
Quotrons and StonkBrokers reverse the order: first define what this NFT can hold and on what basis it shares revenue; the image is just the shell. The source of funds is also not points printed by the project team, but real transaction fees occurring on-chain, which are then used in the market to buy Robinhood-issued stock tokens. It should be made clear that Stock Token provides stock price exposure, not equity in the listed company, and carries no voting rights.
Quotrons' design is closer to "a machine that prints stocks."
The total supply of the collection is fixed at 4,444, using ERC-404: one fungible token corresponds to one terminal. When first purchased, the screen is dark and it can only be traded; if the holder burns the corresponding token, the terminal is permanently connected - the screen lights up, and tokenized U.S. stocks are claimed along preset tracks, covering NVDA, AAPL, TSLA, GME, SPY, and others. Burned tokens cannot return to circulation, so for every additional terminal that starts working, there is one fewer available for trading in the market. The terminals also feed on transaction fees: part goes to rewards, and part goes to buyback and burn. Its difference from traditional PFPs is very concrete: what you are buying is not a rare skin, but the decision of whether to lock liquidity into a machine that can no longer be sold back to the market.
StonkBrokers takes another path: making the image itself become a wallet.
All 4,444 brokers are based on ERC-6551. Each NFT generates an independent token-bound account when minted, and the account is preloaded with random stocks; after activation, it then shares Anvil AMM fees according to tier - the protocol uses these fees to buy more stocks in the market and deposit them into activated broker accounts. When the NFT is sold, the unwithdrawn assets in the account travel with the image; the activation status is also reset to zero, and if the next owner wants to continue receiving rewards, they must pay the activation fee again, part of which is burned. The accompanying STONKBROKER welds the NFT and token into the same exchange relationship: the image can be redeemed for a fixed number of tokens, and the tokens can be redeemed back into the image. As a result, what holders trade is no longer just an avatar, but the broker + the package of stock exposure inside it + the right to share fees in the future.
These two mechanisms therefore draw three boundaries between themselves and old NFTs.
First, revenue rights are written into the contract and do not rely on roadmap promises of airdrops. Second, supply decreases through use: Quotrons relies on burning for hard connection, while StonkBrokers relies on activation burn and turnover reset. Third, the object being transferred has changed - what used to be sold was an image and community access, while what is sold now is an account with a position.
Is NFT's new potential in RWA?
On September 20, Ansem said he had bought his first NFTs in recent years. He believes that tokenized stocks, RWA, and stablecoins are laying infrastructure, and NFTs can become the ownership, access, and community layer on top; the hybrid model of NFT + fungible token has been tried before without success, but it is worth doing again - liquidity tokens handle broad participation, while NFTs handle higher-tier rights.
This judgment is not unreasonable. The evidence, however, is not in JPEGs, but in the RWA market.
a16z crypto analysis says that in August 2026, RWA perpetual trading volume was $117.3 billion, about 44 times year-on-year; of that, about $101 billion, or 86%, occurred on-chain, while CEXs accounted for about $16 billion. Open interest was about $4.8 billion, roughly 30 times higher than $161 million in July 2025. The structure has also changed: equities accounted for 48%, commodities 28%, and indices
