Japanese IP Moriusa surges 7 times, igniting an on-chain frenzy. Is the NFT market rebounding from the bottom?

Author: Patti, ChainCatcher

Editor: TB, ChainCatcher

A wave of NFT frenzy is being stirred up by a force from the East.

This Thursday evening, Moriusa (すとぷり) NFTs launched on Opensea, with a starting price of 0.05 ETH, and the market was exceptionally hot, with its floor price soaring to 0.44 ETH at one point.

While users in the Chinese community were still in the dark, Moriusa had already taken the Japanese and English-speaking communities by storm, even driving up the gas fees on the ETH chain.

The Moriusa NFT character was born from the popular Japanese IP—STPR's virtual idol group もりうさ (strawberryprince), serving as a peripheral derivative of this virtual idol group. Mofees is a collection of Moriusas, each with its own unique emotions and outfits.

According to related YouTube pages, the strawberryprince channel currently has 3.63 million subscribers, and the large volume of buy orders is primarily coming from its offline IP audience, concentrated in Japan and the Western markets.

Chinese NFT player Yellen revealed that the Chinese community has hardly participated in the Moriusa collaboration, yet the popularity of Moriusa NFTs in Japan and the English-speaking regions is exceptionally high.

In fact, this is not the first time NFTs have collided with Japanese anime culture. As a global industry, anime culture's derivative products are a timeless topic. Using the currently popular NFT format to connect offline fans with online communities has become a breakthrough for many cultural IPs to create economic value. Numerous IPs, including "One Piece," "Bleach," "Attack on Titan," and many from Studio Ghibli under Hayao Miyazaki, have already developed their own IP products. However, most of these have been released on domestic Japanese platforms, such as LINE NFT and Fantop, making them relatively unfamiliar to Chinese users, thus limiting their impact and economic effects.

Moriusa NFTs have recognized this pain point. As early as January this year, STPR announced to fans that it would launch an "overseas development project," and choosing to release on the overseas platform Opensea can leverage the enthusiasm of local Japanese fans to drive up the on-chain heat of NFTs, thereby attracting overseas market attention to this local IP.

Moriusa Breaks the Circle and Ignites OpenSea: Can NFT Revival Return to Its Peak?

Currently, the overall activity level of the NFT market remains sluggish, with leading NFT trading platforms like OpenSea and Magic Eden facing severe challenges. According to CryptoSlam data, global NFT sales in the first quarter of 2025 were only $1.5 billion, a 61% decrease from $4.1 billion in the same period of 2024.

In August 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a "Wells Notice" to OpenSea, accusing some NFTs on its platform of potentially constituting "unregistered securities" and threatening to file a lawsuit. This news was like adding fuel to the fire, accelerating the cooling of an already weak NFT market. Data shows that OpenSea's share of the Ethereum NFT market dropped from 97% at the beginning of 2022 to about 20% by the end of 2024, putting its platform status in jeopardy.

However, a turning point began at the start of this year when OpenSea launched the public beta version of its next-generation platform OS2. At the same time, the SEC announced a suspension of its investigation into OpenSea, temporarily easing regulatory pressure and giving the platform some breathing room. With these dual benefits, OpenSea quickly revitalized itself and regained its dominant position in the NFT trading market.

According to the latest data from NFTScan, OpenSea's trading volume has remained at the top for the past 30 days, with a market share exceeding 40%, far surpassing its competitors Blur (23%), Magic Eden (7.69%), and OKX NFT (5%).

Additionally, wallet interaction data shows that nearly 70% of NFT trading users choose to complete transactions through OpenSea, while the combined share of Magic Eden, Blur, and OKX NFT is less than 17%.

As the overall heat of the NFT industry rises, trading activities are also showing signs of recovery. CryptoSlam data indicates that the number of NFT buyers in the past week exceeded 359,000, a 52% increase from the previous week; among them, the leading NFT series CryptoPunks saw sales soar by 82% year-on-year, with monthly sales rebounding to $20 million.

A 7-Fold Increase: Can Morius Break Out of Its Own Market?

The NFT market seems to be emerging from its winter.

Currently, Morius has announced a partnership with Memeland, aiming to connect Web2 and Web3 communities to create new content distribution channels. According to Opensea data, the current floor price of Moriusa is 0.38 ETH, which is already 7 times the initial price of 0.05 ETH. Most of the buying community comes from Japan and Western markets, while interest from the Chinese community is relatively sparse.

As of the time of publication, Moriusa's trading volume has reached 374 ETH, ranking among the top ten in 24-hour trading volume on Opensea. Can Moriusa turn the tide on Opensea amidst the NFT market's recovery? Will the overall heat of the NFT market continue to rise?