The volume of OpenSea NFT trading has increased as the craze for Bored Apes grows.

According to data, OpenSea has produced over $700 million in sales this year, putting the NFT marketplace on course for another record month.

NFT trade volumes on OpenSea are increasing in January, fueled by a fresh speculative frenzy on Yuga Labs’ Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) (MAYC).

According to statistics uploaded by “rchen8” on Dune Analytics, OpenSea has produced over $700 million in trade volume since the beginning of 2022, with January 3 being the busiest day of the year with a stunning $255.8 million in 24-hour volume.

While famous observers such as Wu Blockchain have claimed that the volume on Jan. 3 was a record high for OpenSea, earlier data uploaded by rchen8 on Dune Analytics reveals that the all-time high (ATH) for OpenSea was $322 million on Aug. 29.

In December, OpenSea’s monthly volume surpassed $3.24 billion, falling just 5.3 percent shy of the platform’s all-time high of $3.42 billion in August. With the NFT marketplace already transacting over $700 million in trade volume in the first four days of January, records may be broken shortly if the trend continues throughout the month.

Ape mania bores me

The current craze around the BAYC and MAYC NFTs, as well as a basket of other projects from Yuga Labs, may be contributing to OpenSea’s skyrocketing volumes.

According to CryptoSlam data, the MAYC is presently the top-ranked NFT project in terms of seven-day secondary market volume at $93.2 million, with the BAYC NFTs coming in second with $88.4 million.

MAYC and BAYC projects have produced $189.7 million and $182.6 million respectively over the last 30 days, giving them the third and fourth highest ranking NFT collections at the time of writing.

MAYC has created $18.7 million in secondary volume in a 24-hour period, while the BAYC has generated $14 million. According to OpenSea, the current floor price for BAYC NFTs is a whopping 67 Ether (ETH) worth around $250,000, while MAYC NFTs are presently selling for 15.87 ETH, or $59,300.

So far in January, numerous pop-culture superstars, including rapper Eminem, musician Britney Spears, and comedian Dave Chappelle, have allegedly purchased BAYC NFTs for six-figure sums.