NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) - Popular collections of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), including the celebrity-favoured Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), are being hit hard as the crypto market sinks.

The NFT Index, which tracks the performance of NFTs and is weighted based on each token's circulating supply, fell about 23 per cent in the past 24 hours. The BAYC NFTs saw a 25 per cent decrease in average price in the same period, according to data from DappRadar and CoinMarketCap. Some of these tokens had sold for millions of dollars in recent months.

The price drops are part of a broader crypto sell-off occurring in part because of the surprise inflation readings that hit a 40-year high last Friday (June 10). Bitcoin fell as much as 15.5 per cent, reaching an 18-month low and down more than 50 per cent from its all-time record in November.

Bitcoin was trading at around US$23,523 (S$32,750) just after the stock market closed in New York.

The NFT market had been a bright spot relative to the rest of assets in the crypto space during the market rout. Investors have built substantial portfolios of NFTs in the past six months despite their low liquidity compared with fungible tokens like Bitcoin and Ether.