June 16, 2026 · blue-chip floors vs holding ETH, ~3-month setup · basket: 5 collections · data: CoinGecko + FRED
Setup score0/100UNFAVORABLE
unfavorableneutralfavorable
Conditions favor just holding ETH. Measures the setup for blue-chip floors to beat ETH itself over ~3 months (1-month moves run opposite during ETH spikes — that's the lag this is built on). 1 of 6 components live; weights renormalize.
Kill-switches — when these trip, there is no score
Data coverage5/8 collections returning data (missing: cryptopunks, azuki, fidenza-by-tyler-hobbs)clear
Below 4 live collections the basket is not a basket. Suspend.
Absolute liquidity floor459 ETH basket volume / 24hclear
Below ~100 ETH/day across the whole basket, the 'floor price' is a fiction maintained by a handful of wallets — any score would be meaningless. The non-negotiable switch for an asset class ~95% below peak with ~50% wash volume.
Holder-base collapseneeds run history (connect a KV/Blob store)clear
Holders shrinking faster than 10%/month means the owner base itself is exiting — a regime no setup score should trade against. Suspend.
What the score is made of
ETH wealth-effect windowETH -19% over 3m, -16% over 1m — no 3-month ETH rally — no wealth to recycleRED · 0/25
The documented driver: an acute ETH rally first pushes ETH-denominated floors DOWN (March 2024: ETH +63%/30d, BAYC -27% in ETH), then the new ETH wealth recycles into NFTs with a lag (the August 2025 pattern). Full credit = strong 3-month ETH rally that has gone quiet.
Basket floor trend (ETH terms)needs run history (connect a KV/Blob store)YELLOW · —/20
Credit for an early upturn; deliberate penalty for parabolic moves — buying mean-reversion in a structurally declining asset class can buy a terminal decline.
Valuation vs activityneeds run history (connect a KV/Blob store)YELLOW · —/15
Basket floor-cap per unit of trading activity, against its own history — the strongest market-level predictor in the academic record: high valuation-to-activity ratios precede lower returns. Volume is wash-contaminated (~50% market-wide), which is why this gets a modest weight despite the strong evidence.
Holder breadthneeds run history (connect a KV/Blob store)YELLOW · —/15
Participation, not price. April 2026 proved the trap: BAYC floors +75% in a month while active users HALVED — a shrinking pool concentrating in fewer trades. Rising floors only score well here if people are actually arriving.
Risk appetite (ETH/BTC)unavailableYELLOW · —/15
NFTs are the last asset in the risk chain — they need ETH itself leading the rotation before ETH wealth reaches floors.
Floor volatility (inverted)needs run history (connect a KV/Blob store)YELLOW · —/10
Lagged volatility is one of the few validated negatives: a one s.d. rise in NFT-market volatility preceded roughly 15% lower returns at the two-month horizon. Calm floors set up better than churning ones.
Macro liquidity (context, unweighted)5,897bn, +7bn over 4 weeksGREEN ·
NFTs are the highest-beta, last-in-line risk asset — a draining-liquidity regime is a headwind regardless of the score. Shown for judgment, never weighted.
Read this before acting
What would make this wrong: the kill-switch conditions above; speculative flow staying in tokens (a PENGU-style token can absorb the attention while the actual floor sits still, breaking the wealth-effect transmission); an NFT ETF approval structurally re-rating the market; or the asset class simply continuing its structural decline — a mean-reversion signal can buy a terminal trend, which is why the parabolic penalty, the holder gate, and the liquidity switch all exist.
The two flagship episodes this is built on (March 2024 floors-lag-the-ETH-spike, August 2025 wealth-recycle) trace largely to one data provider and one commentator. They are the best evidence available, and that is faint praise. Let the log accumulate, and trust the track-record card over any single reading.