The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection surged to the top of the non-fungible token (NFT) market with US$1.33 million in sales on July 31, according to CryptoSlam data.

The collection slumped throughout July and hasn’t had a single day above US$1 million until Wednesday.

The unusual surge has been attributed to Ape Finance, a project that deployed a new contract that allows traders to lock their BAYC NFTs to mint 100 million $BAYC fungible memecoins.

The tokens can be burned to claim back the NFTs.

One investor who identified the opportunity early boasted a US$150,000 profit in just one minute.

The BAYC NFT collection ranks second in all-time sales with US$3.17 billion, behind Axie Infinity’s US$4.27.

The second-ranking collection for the day was “n0 0rdinary kind,” a new collection on Bitcoin with a total sales volume of US$1.02 million.

The collection saw 6,601 unique buyers and 1,712 sellers in secondary sales on the day of its debut.

Coming in third, the DogeZuki Collection on Solana collected US$613,148 in sales. Though its sales volume rose from Tuesday’s total of US$495,472, it wasn’t enough to give hold on to the top spot.

Guild of Guardians Heroes on Immutable followed at fourth with US$420,610 and Bitcoin Puppets came in fifth with US$385,857.

The Ethereum blockchain, which hosts the Bored Ape Yacht Club, reported a robust US$15.65 million in sales on the same day, a significant uptick from the US$3.93 million recorded the previous day.

Ethereum’s market-leading performance on July 31 contributes to its all-time sales volume of US$43.91 billion, maintaining its status as a powerhouse in the NFT market.

The overall NFT market in July recorded US$430.44 million in sales, down from US$438.67 million in June.

Ethereum bucked the trend with US$142.32 million monthly sales in July, up from June’s US$139.53.