Latest Free-to-Mint Hit, The Saudis NFT Collection Records $8.25M in Sales‍

‍The Saudis, a brand-new free-to-mint NFT initiative, has become the second most traded collection on the leading NFT marketplace OpenSea, with $8.25 million in sales. 

On July 9, 5,555 Saudis-themed NFTs were made available for free minting, and they quickly sold out. According to rankings by OpenSea, the collection has recorded nearly ETH 7,500 (USD 8,250,000 at the time of publication) in trade volume over the previous week, behind only the CryptoPunks collection, which has scored ETH 14,287 (nearly USD 16m).

The project's actual floor price, which corresponds to the cost of the least expensive token currently available for purchase on the open market, is at about 0.83 ETH, or around $923, after reaching a high of over 1.3 ETH, or about $1,650, on Saturday.

With more than 4,700 ETH in trading volume on Sunday, the collection even temporarily overtook the top project in terms of volume over the 24 hours span.

The initiative's "kingdom" of Twitter followers, many of whom create Saudi Arabia-inspired meme movies to promote the idea, gave the project solid momentum. The Saudis’ anonymous founding team is only the most recent in a long line of similar free-to-mint NFT ventures and performance art-driven projects. 

The project’s sales have since cooled off from their weekend highs considering the current crypto market conditions. However, the Saudis remain the first popular project to launch since the price of ETH crashed as much as 50% in early June.