CyberKongz’ mass monkey minting burns $4M in Ether in 5 hours

The NFT monkey minting frenzy has caused gas prices to skyrocket again.

The latest craze in animal themed nonfungible tokens has been such a big hit that it has become the top burner of Ethereum transaction fees over the past 24 hours.

CyberKongz, which started as a collection of 1,000 unique NFTs in early March 2021, has surged in popularity recently. So much so that it has today usurped NFT marketplace OpenSea and the world’s most popular decentralized exchange, Uniswap, in terms of Ethereum fee burning.

The achievement was noted by the Chinese blockchain outlet Wu Blockchain which reported that it had burned 1,240 in ETH, or around $4 million in just 5 hours.

The NFT project CyberKongz VX has burned more than 1,240 ETH in 5h, ranking first in the burning list. pic.twitter.com/5ZCfZmqcU2

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) August 16, 2021

The mass monkey minting has caused gas prices to skyrocket with average transactions reaching their highest level since late May at around $25. Etherscan’s gas tracker is reporting higher prices of over $40 for more complex operations such as smart contract interactions.

At the time of writing, the ETH fee burning tracker ultrasound.money was reporting that CyberKongz VX had been responsible for the burning of 1,430 ETH, or $4.7 million, over the past 24 hours. It was still ahead of both OpenSea and Uniswap — in fact it burnt more than both of them combined.

According to OpenSea, there are now 3,000 NFTs in the ape-themed collection with more than 600 owners and a floor price of 1.27 ETH — approximately $4,150. The most expensive one, the first in the collection, was being offered for a whopping 10,000 ETH, or $33 million.

According to the official website for the NFT collection, the 34×34 pixel CyberKongz images achieved great popularity due to their suitability as profile pictures on Discord and social media. A BANANA token has also been created, giving genesis CyberKongz the ability to passively generate 10 tokens per day for the next ten years.

Related: Are NFTs being used for money laundering? Yes, they are, claims Mr. Whale

A minting event which went live around 8 hours ago on Sunday, Aug. 15 at 19:00 UTC. Up to ten thousand CyberKong NFTs are available to mint including 3D ones that can be used in the metaverse.

THAT WAS SO FAST!⚡️

Big thanks to everyone who got CyberKongz VX!♥️

There were some hickups right after the mint but we got it all worked out!

If you want to buy CyberKongz VX on secondary market, please make sure you buy from the correct collection:https://t.co/yuvSDKClCV

— CyberKongz (@CyberKongz) August 15, 2021

OpenSea, where the newly minted CyberKongz are now selling on the secondary market, is responsible for nearly 16% of all gas used on the network. It has generated $2.7 million in fees over the past 24 hours.