A new NFT collection called PhantaBear has beaten the sales volume of Bored Ape in the past week

• A new line of NFTs has dethroned the Bored Ape Yacht Club when it comes to seven-day trading volume: PhantaBear.
• The NFT collection was launched on January 1 this year, backed by Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou and Hong Kong actor Edison Chen
• On January 14, it had a floor price of 3.88 ether or roughly $12,750.

A new line of non-fungible tokens has dethroned the highly coveted Bored Ape Yacht Club on trading volume in the past seven days: PhantaBear.

The NFT collection was launched on January 1, backed by Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou and Hong Kong actor Edison Chen. The 10,000-piece collection sold out less than an hour after it was released on New Year's Day, and its price has also tripled since then.

The project was jointly launched by Chou's fashion brand, PHANTACi, and new NFT platform Ezek. And just like Bored Apes, each PhantaBear has unique features and traits.

While trading volume is just one way to measure the popularity of an NFT, it is indicative of people's interest in the collection. And data shows that the bears are beating the apes.

In the past seven days, the trading volume of PhantaBear surged to $63.82 million with its lowest floor price at 4 ether (roughly $13,200), according to NFTstats.com. Bored Ape saw $54.51 million in trading volume with a floor price of 74.69 ether (around $247,000). Also in the same time period, 185 apes were sold compared to 4,812 bears.

The dethroning of the Bored Ape collection is notable as it has been considered one of the most sought-after NFTs since launching in April 2021. High-profile figures who own a part of the collection include NBA star Stephen Curry, who purchased one for $180,000, and hip hop artist Eminem, who bought one for $462,000.

This continuous interest pushed the sales of Bored Ape to jump past $1 billion in January. A month before in December, its floor price surpassed that of CryptoPunks — considered one of the original NFT collections since it came out in 2017 — for the first time on OpenSea, the biggest NFT marketplace.

The recent emergence of PhantaBear illustrates the ongoing frenzy behind NFTs, digital representations of artwork, sports cards, or other collectibles tied to a blockchain.

In 2021, NFTs recorded over $12 billion in sales on the ethereum blockchain, where the majority of these tokens run, according to data from NonFungible.com, marking a stunning 17,864% year-on-year growth compared to 2020's $67 million.

NFTs, as a whole, still have yet to fully break into the mainstream due to their highly speculative nature, and many question the intrinsic value of these tokens.

But celebrities, digital artists, and traditional art auction houses like Christie's and Sotheby's are riding the NFT wave, according to a 2021 year-end report by Kraken Intelligence.

"By the end of 2021, the NFT market boasted a diverse audience and made waves in several sectors, namely in art, collectibles, DeFi, gaming, metaverse, and utility-driven NFTs," Kraken said.