Original | Odaily Odaily
Author | Asher
Editor | Qin Xiaofeng
As the price of BTC continues to rise, the Bitcoin ecosystem NFT has ushered in a new round of explosion, among which NodeMonkes (called "Node Monkey" in the Chinese community) has performed the most outstandingly.
According to the latest data from the NFT section of CoinGecko, NodeMonkes sold 80 units in the past 24 hours, with a 24-hour trading volume of 68.28 BTC (approximately US$4.6 million); the current floor price is 0.8 BTC (approximately US$53,755), an increase of more than 120% in the past week; the total market value is as high as US$537 million, replacing Pudgy Penguins and second only to CryptoPunks and BAYC. 
It took NodeMonkes less than 3 months from the launch of the project to becoming one of the top three NFT projects in terms of total market value (and the only BTC ecosystem project in the top five list). Why is it so popular and favored by the community?
The first native 10K PFP series on Bitcoin
The NodeMonkes design prototype first appeared in the Ordinals testnet on December 21, 2022.
As the first native 10K PFP series in the Bitcoin ecosystem, the project will be minted from February 14 to February 16, 2023. The collection has 111 features, including 32 bodies, 5 ears, 29 eyes, and 45 heads. This project is also one of the most complete projects in the Bitcoin ecosystem that lists features and rarity. 
Image source: official website
The creator of NodeMonkes is nodetoshi (anonymous), and the Chinese community calls him "Shi Bencong". He has led the creation of multiple projects. According to investigations by multiple community members, he is the organizer of BitcoinRocks and may also be the creator of RSIC. In addition, nodetoshi is one of the first three people in the founding team of Ordinals, and had the highest authority in the early Ordinals DC community - only two people had it, the other one was Casey, and nodetoshi left the team due to conflicts.
Nodetoshi has his own thoughts on the fair sale of the project (Freemint). In order to prevent scientists and speculators from rushing to buy, he used his own money to airdrop 19,000 RSIC to the most active and loyal non-robot accounts in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
When NodeMonkes was released, nodetoshi auctioned 8,000 NFTs using a Dutch auction with a descending price, starting at 0.21 BTC. After about 30 hours of Dutch auction, all were sold out when the price dropped to around 0.04 BTC. Of the remaining NoMonkes, 1,000 were used for the community, contributors, artists, developers, etc., and the other 1,000 were reserved for the founding team, and the relevant wallet addresses have been made public. 
Image source: Official Twitter
There were several episodes during the NodeMonkes Dutch auction. NodeMonkes initially announced that it would conduct Freemint; but considering that it would be reserved by scientists and speculators (such as memory pool orders), the team changed to a whitelist sale again. After that, the team received a large number of whitelist requests and found that many users pretended to be project parties or communities to ask for whitelists, so they cancelled the whitelist sale method. In the end, after comprehensive consideration, the Dutch auction was adopted, giving the pricing power to the community and the market, while also avoiding scientists and speculators.
The “Golden Shovel” of BTC Ecosystem
On January 22, the Rune Miner - RSIC was airdropped to the wallets of a group of active NFT players in the Bitcoin ecosystem. NoMonkes holders gained a lot from this airdrop. According to feedback from community members, active addresses holding NodeMonkes received up to 5 RSIC airdrops.
After the start of trading, RSIC's performance was also very impressive. On the day of trading, the floor price exceeded 0.01 BTC. In the following two days, the floor price reached 0.05 BTC, and then fell back to stabilize at 0.03 BTC. Recently, with the overall improvement of the crypto market, especially the continuous increase in the price of BTC, RSIC's current floor price remains around 0.12 BTC (worth about $8,000). 
Image source: magiceden
With the recent increase in the floor price, NodeMonkes has received more and more attention. It is expected that more BTC ecological projects will airdrop to NodeMonkes holders during cold start in the future, recreating the former glory of BAYC.
Whale add to their holdings, “1 Monkey = 1 BTC” is about to be realized
According to the monitoring data of NFTstats.eth on March 4, a whale address starting with fh3csy swept in six "alien" NodeMonkes at a total price of 53.45 BTC, with a total expenditure of approximately US$3.35 million and an average price of 8.9 BTC. 
Image source: NFTstats.eth
As the news came out, the market buying increased, and the floor price rose to more than 0.9 BTC late yesterday. Various communities began to discuss NodeMonkes, and a strong FOMO mood was in the air:
“No good news is the biggest good news. I suddenly realized that Nothing>Anything, and projects that do nothing are good projects with unlimited imagination. Looking back at BAYC before it started making games, its floor price kept rising; after it announced that it would make games, its floor price kept falling, and it was completely unpopular. The node monkey on the BTC chain has no ecology or vision, and its floor price has risen the best.”
“ Looking back now, was it the intention of the big brother behind the scenes that Node Monkey switched from the original Free Mint to the Dutch Auction? And people who like the Dutch Auction as a sales method seem to also like it among those who play Ethereum’s top NFTs. Maybe there is capital behind it.”
“ From the Dutch auction that encountered countless FUD, to the community split after the listing, to the current Graphcoin spiral, to the current airdrop win, and now to becoming one of the most comfortable few people in the crypto. Only by holding NodeMonkes can you make money.”
“Node Monkey is the hard currency of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Exchanging one Node Monkey for one BTC is no longer a dream.”
summary
Analyzing from multiple dimensions such as community popularity and secondary market transaction volume, NodeMonkes is undoubtedly the leader of NFT in the current BTC ecosystem. At the same time, NodeMonkes' own two labels, "the first native 10K PFP series in the Bitcoin ecosystem" and "high-quality gold shovel", have also made the project popularity continue to rise, and the floor price has been continuously raised. Now it is not far from the community's shouting "1 monkey = 1 BTC".
In the future, we will have to wait and see whether NodeMonkes can replace BAYC or even CryptoPunks.
