In recent news, nearly 95% of the cryptocurrency market has experienced an increase in price. Following Bitcoin's (BTC) recent but brief surge to beyond $55,000, most of the altcoins managed to undergo a similar spike, however, one cryptocurrency asset, in particular, managed to stand above the rest.

As of the time of this writing, Shiba Inu (SHIB) is now the 12th highest ranked cryptocurrency by market capitalization, with a current price of about $0.00003. This new price is indicative of a whopping 385% increase within the past week, with the token itself recording a new all-time high. The question that must be asked now though is why this has happened so quickly and whether Shiba Inu can maintain this sort of momentum going forward.

SHIB, with a market capitalization of approximately $17 billion, has now surpassed the likes of Uniswap (UNI), Chainlink (LINK), and even Litecoin (LTC). Shiba Inu was initially outlined as a sort of experiment in decentralized and unplanned community building as well as engagement. It was launched back in August of last year via a pseudonymous developer going by the alias 'Ryoshi'. Although many argue the coin has "no real utility" it stands as an example of what the power of community can yield in the crypto ecosystem.

This sentiment data mirrored the mood of investors, with the Cryptocurrency Fear & Greed Index reaching 76/100 on Saturday, indicating ‘extreme greed’. According to Rekt Capital, investors would hence do well to exercise caution as a retest could be imminent. This line of thinking was backed by long-term market participants already working on an exit strategy, as well as some historical data that showed a 50% sell-off during the last time a +90% pump had taken place within the cryptocurrency market.

Last week, the Galactic Punks NFT project made history as it launched the first series of NFT's ever created on the Terra Blockchain. The launch came shortly after the Columbus-5 upgrade that made it possible to mint assets on Terra. Community members flooded into the randomearth.io marketplace last Saturday to get their chance to mint one of the 10,921 unique NFT's in the Galactic Punks series. An anxious community, more than 5,000 members strong, hovered by their commuters awaiting the opening of the mint. In less than 8 minutes the entire set was claimed.

This drop also made history, resulting in the largest block ever recorded on Terra with more than 1,000 transactions processed in a single block. The frenzy around these NFT's continued in the days following the launch, recording over 10M in trading volume in the first 24h after the launch. In fact, just recently a tweet emerged showing that someone traded one of their rare Galactic Punks for a Tesla!

NFT's have taken the spotlight in crypto as of late. These pixilated characters are more than just randomly generated jpegs. They are becoming an increasingly mainstream characteristic of digital community and provenance. It used to be that a Rolex or a Lamborgini was a "flex" of someone's wealth. Now digital native consumers are turning to digital collectibles to signal their wealth and stature.

Whether you believe NFT's are a bubble, or if you think they are just getting started. It is clear that something big is changing in the world of art and culture. With the advent of non-fungible tokens, artists and communities are beginning to thrive in the digital world, and we are so excited to watch this industry evolve.