Altcoins on hot streak

An explosion of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has been made possible by ownership authentication technology in the form of smart contracts facilitated by blockchain networks such as Ethereum, Solana and Polkadot – all of which are now cresting near, at or above all-time highs.

It's a veritable non-Bitcoin bonanza:

* DOT dabbled in ATH action on Monday and again on Tuesday, hitting $53. This morning, DOT’s at about $51.

* Earlier today, ETH crossed $4,600. That was a first. As of 7:30 a.m. (EST), the second-largest crypto was roughly $4,560.

* SOL, meanwhile, surpassing Cardano as the fifth-largest coin, hit $234, a record high, merely moments ago; then it fell, slightly, as the sun came up on the East Coast.

ETH has serious momentum and it'll continue to play a major role in the NFT and metaverse ecosystem build out, said OSL's head trader, Ryan Rabaglia, pointing to what he sees as a “potentially prolonged market sentiment uplift."

Dogecoin has been fairly flat over 24 hours while rival Shiba Inu fell 9%. And so it goes. DOGE is ninth and SHIB is tenth, swapping poll positions in typical crypto fashion, perpetually back and forth. The SHIB market could be in for some interesting times: a mysterious wallet containing $5.4 billion worth of the meme currency – and thought perhaps to be dormant due to a lost key – was activated yesterday. The owner started moving funds (CoinGape).

Man, talk about endless possibilities! There are brand new NFTs connected with rhino horns, virtual Saudi Arabian oil fields, Bollywood memorabilia, UFC fight posters, scenes from "Pulp Fiction," McDonald's McRib ... and that's just within the past few days.

Meanwhile, over the past 24 hours, nearly a half-million dollars' worth of tokenized animated gorilla avatars changed hands.

The Degenerate Ape Academy, Solana’s top NFT project, has generated more than $100 million worth of secondary sales since launching in August.

Ethereum remains the most popular chain among NFT traders. Ethereum’s secondary sales topped $2.2 billion in September.

However, in only a few months, Solana has become one of the top NFT blockchains. This is one of the reasons SOL has risen since the end of the summer and why it could possibly reach $250 by year’s end (Cointelegraph).

A pop-up decentralized organization (DAO) just bought an NFT connected with a cube made of tungsten, a rare, exceptionally dense metal.

What started as a joke turned into a meme and then a boom for Willowbrook, Illinois-based Midwest Tungsten Service, which specializes in alloys available as plates, blocks, wires, rods and bars, such as those used as ballast in high-performance cars and boats.

In clean, compact cube form, tungsten makes a terrific conversation piece ("it's so small, yet so heavy ...")

Last week, Midwest Tungsten auctioned off its first tungsten NFT, representing a physical 2,000lb cube that the buyer, Tungsten DAO, gets to visit once a year. Created by NFT collector Van Dough, the new DAO, born last month, is described as an “experimental meme incubation studio.”

Van Dough also revealed the formation of a new NFT fund in partnership with Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, co-founders of Three Arrows Capital.

Tungsten's super-density has not been lost on the world's military industrial complex. The metal is used to make “kinetic bombardment” missiles.