Morning Minute: NFTs Storm Back, Led by Bored Apes

Morning Minute is simply a regular newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The investigation and opinions expressed are his ain and bash not needfully bespeak those of Decrypt. And check retired our new regular quality show covering each of the apical stories successful 5 minutes oregon less, downloadable connected Apple Pod oregon Spotify.

GM!

Today’s apical news:

• Bitcoin notches highest play adjacent since January astatine $78,500 earlier overnight selloff

• BTC ETFs spot $813M successful nett inflows implicit the past week

• DeFi United rallies to adjacent $200M atrocious indebtedness spread for Aave

• Western Union to motorboat stablecoin connected Solana, on with a Stable Card

• NFTs station large play rally with leaders up 15-20%; Punks walk 31 ETH, BAYC adjacent 10

📈 Blue-Chip NFTs Post Their Best Week of 2026

The NFT marketplace enactment up its strongest numbers successful months this past week, with astir each large blue-chip postulation gaining treble digits.

CryptoPunks crossed 30.95 ETH ($72,000) up 16.2% connected the week. Bored Apes are backmost supra 9.65 ETH aft 2 grail income successful the past 24 hours: a Gold Fur for 121.9 ETH and a Trippy Fur for 49 ETH.

The determination is broad. Azuki is up 49%. BAKC up 50.1%. Azuki Elementals up 37.5%. Otherside Koda up 32.2%. Meebits up 29.3%. MAYC up 24.2%. Nouns posted a 284.6% summation but connected conscionable 33 income and 51 ETH successful volume, truthful that fig needs context. The lone reddish connected the board: Hypurr, denominated successful HYPE, down 6.1%.

While Punks are inactive up top, it’s the Bored Apes starring the mode successful this run. They’re up astir 100% implicit the past period connected the backmost of their caller CEO and chatter of an IRL clubhouse, and they’re bringing vigor backmost into NFTs. Vibes are bully again (of people the greenish candles help).

As to wherefore NFTs are making their determination astatine this constituent of the cycle, galore are pointing to the extremity of the OpenSea farming program. Effectively, determination person been incentives to commercialized NFTs crossed marketplaces similar Blur, Magic Eden and OpenSea for astir of the past 3-4 years. And inducement programs person historically destroyed request for NFT collections.

Now those farming programs are implicit and a existent proviso and request economics tin footwear successful again. Let’s spot however beardown the request is…

💰 DeFi United Hits Its Target—Aave’s Bad Debt Crisis Has a Resolution

Six days aft the $292 cardinal Kelp DAO exploit astir broke DeFi’s largest lending protocol, Aave laminitis Stani Kulechov posted Saturday that the DeFi United betterment money has reached its target.

His nonstop words: “The betterment money has present been reached for the intent of afloat backing rsETH, taxable to pending votes, indicative agreements, and palmy execution.”