Pumping Parrots  NFT collection is in the news due to its marketing strategy, which many have described as a pyramid scheme.

Unlike most NFT collections that market their utilities, Pumping Parrots markets itself as a pump-and-dump opportunity for collectors to make money before the merge.

“The rules are simple: Flip your NFT at 2X. If you buy at 0.1, sell at 0.2. If you buy at 0.3, sell at 0.6. If everybody sticks to the plan, we all profit! Let’s make some ETH before the merge.”

So far, the approach appears to be working for the NFT collection as its trading volume in the last 24 hours has increased by 753% to 467 sales, according to OpenSea data.

Its floor price spiked from 0.2 ETH to 0.99 ETH during this period.

Copycats in the market already

While several stakeholders are critical of the collection’s strategy, its relative success is already inspiring copycat NFT collections.

Gotta love a good Pyramid Scheme that’s at least explicit about it. pic.twitter.com/Q9VtYNlhKe

— NFTStatistics.eth (@punk9059) September 11, 2022

Another collection, Pumping Slimes, employed a similar 2x flipping playbook and described itself as the second biggest pump in the NFT space.

At its launch on Sept. 12, the collection’s floor price rose to 0.0123 ETH with a volume of 9.5 ETH and 776 holders. However, its floor price has dropped to 0.032 ETH as of press time.

Is the NFT market dead?

Interest in NFTs appeared to have tanked as the year progressed. OpenSea’s trading volume dropped by 99% between May and August 2022.

According to DappRadar, the NFT marketplace had a trading volume of $405 million as of May 1 but dropped to less than $5 million towards the end of August.

Meanwhile, its trading volume has risen to above $10 million, with over 37,000 traders in the last 24 hours.

CryptoSlam data showed that blue-chip NFT collection Bored Ape had less than 300 unique buyers in August — the lowest this year.

However, despite the declining numbers, institutional investors remain drawn to the space. Starbucks plans to launch an NFT loyalty program, while other top brands Like Gucci, M&M, FIFA, and Tiffany have plans involving NFT.

Besides, new NFT collections like Solana-based y00ts have drawn interest from celebrities like retired football legend Wayne Rooney, former basketball star Allen Iverson, and rapper Lil Baby.