GALA jumps 140% amid weekly NFT rally

After a strong start to the year, double-digit gains were recorded last week among digital currencies related to gaming and non-fungible tokens (NFT). Among the tokens that have rallied in early 2023 are Gala (GALA), Apecoin (APE), Decentraland (MANA) and The Sandbox (SAND).

According to CoinGecko data, the overall crypto market capitalization is up 6.7% to $884 billion year-to-date. So far, this momentum shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

As it stands, NFT trading volume has seen a significant increase over the past week, rising 31.56% to $207.358 million.

GALA is the current rally leader among the top 100 digital currencies in terms of market capitalization, up 140% since last week. At press time, the native token that powers GALA’s cryptocurrency gaming ecosystem was changing hands at $0.042. This move also represents a 13% increase in value over the past 24 hours. Currently, GALA is the 98th largest digital currency in terms of market capitalization. However, despite the crypto’s commendable weekly gains, it is still down 94.8% from its record high of $0.8248 in November last year.

Coinglass reports that GALA’s $31.82 million in futures positions were liquidated over the past week. In addition, about a quarter of these liquidations were long positions, with the remainder being short trades.

Beyond GALA, BAYC, other popular NFT collections are also seeing a rally throughout the week

Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), which supports the APE token and its upcoming Otherside metaverse initiative, also climbed 23.5% over the past week. For example, at press time, Apecoin is changing hands at $4.87, up 4.2% over the past 24 hours.

Meanwhile, Bored Ape NFT’s trading volume has increased 32.38% over the past seven days to $18.061 million. This spike in value was enough to cement BAYC’s position at the top of the most traded NFTs over the past week.

On the heels of BAYC’s recent rally, another NFT collection linked to Apecoin, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, jumped 60.5%. Trading volume for this NFT collection rose 60.75% over the past week to $13.310 million.

Beyond the nuclear rise of GALA and APE, many other gaming-related crypto projects have also seen significant gains over the same period. For example, the Decentraland-backed MANA token has risen 29% to $0.40 over the past seven days. This bullish development has also reversed MANA’s monthly losses, although the coin is still down 89% on an annual basis.

The sandbox native SAND token has gained 26.5% over the same period, but at press time was trading down 0.5% on the day. The current price of SAND is about $0.51.

Will the increase in NFT trading volume continue?

The recent positive developments in NFT trading should be a relief to investors and observers. In addition, the confidence of many of these market participants should be bolstered in the hope of a sustained recovery. For most of last year, the crypto-currency market wallowed in the pits, with contagion crippling most attempts to rise. However, as the 2023 market continues, the crypto market is proving that even though it’s down, it’s not out of the game.