Pumping Parrots NFTs see 753% increase in sales volume with pyramid scheme

by James · September 12, 2022

Pumping Parrot’s NFT collection is in the news for its marketing strategy, which many have described as a pyramid scheme.

Unlike most NFT pools that market their tools, Pumping Parrots markets itself as a pump-and-dump opportunity for collectors to make money before the merge.

“The rules are simple: Flip the NFT 2X. If you buy at 0.1, sell at 0.2. If you buy at 0.3, sell at 0.6. If everyone sticks to the plan, we all benefit! Let’s make some ETH before the merge.”

So far, the approach seems to be working for the NFT collection as trading volume in the last 24 hours has increased by 753% to 467 sales, according to OpenSea data.

The floor price rose from 0.2 ETH to 0.99 ETH during this period.

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Copycats on the market already

While several stakeholders are critical of the collection’s strategy, its relative success is already inspiring copycat NFT collections.

Gotta love a good pyramid scheme that is at least explicit about it. pic.twitter.com/Q9VtYNlhKe

— NFTStatistics.eth (@punk9059) 11 September 2022

Another collection, Pumping Slimes, used a similar 2x flipping playbook and described itself as the second largest pump in the NFT area.

At launch on September 12, the collection’s floor price rose to 0.0123 ETH with a volume of 9.5 ETH and 776 holders. However, the floor price has fallen to 0.032 ETH at press time.

Is the NFT market dead?

Interest in NFTs seemed to wane as the year progressed. OpenSea’s trading volume fell by 99% between May and August 2022.

According to DappRadar, the NFT marketplace had a trading volume of $405 million as of May 1, but fell to less than $5 million by the end of August.

Meanwhile, trading volume has risen to over $10 million, with over 37,000 traders in the last 24 hours.

CryptoSlam data showed that blue-chip NFT collection Bored Ape had less than 300 unique buyers in August – the lowest this year.

Despite the declining numbers, institutional investors remain attracted to the space. Starbucks plans to launch an NFT loyalty program, while other top brands such as Gucci, M&M, FIFA and Tiffany have plans involving NFT.

Also, new NFT collections like Solana-based y00ts have drawn interest from celebrities such as retired football legend Wayne Rooney, former basketball star Allen Iverson and rapper Lil Baby.