CryptoPunks #20

NFT collection

CryptoPunks & NFT collection & background` CryptoPunks & NFT collection & poster`
CryptoPunks & NFT collection
Category NFT
person-quote
“There’s like a weird intersection here between these virtual, digital things and an artificial rarity, but a rarity that is real and valuable in some sense.” — Matt Hall, co-founder of Larva Labs

Biography:

CryptoPunks is a collection of nonfungible tokens living on the Ethereum blockchain. The project was brought to life in 2017 by Matt Hall and John Watkinson, the founders of Larva Labs. It began as an experiment and ended up as a catalyst that sparked the global adoption of NFTs.

There are exactly 10,000 unique Punks within the collection — 6,039 male and 3,840 female. Most of the Punks are human, though there are other types like zombies, apes and aliens. Apart from their races, Punks have unique attributes that make them all distinct from one another.

Originally, CryptoPunks were given away by their creators for free. Anyone could claim a Punk by only paying the Ethereum gas fee needed. However, the price of Punks has since gone to the moon. The lowest-listed Punk is currently priced at over $200,000, while the most expensive Punk ever sold on-chain — so far — was for nearly $24 million.

Celebrities have also started to collect CryptoPunks. Hip-hop icons Snoop Dogg and Jay-Z both own Punks, and Jason Derulo, Marshmello and 3lau have also jumped into collecting Punks of their own. Meanwhile, businesspeople like Jordan Belfort, also known as “The Wolf of Wall Street,” and American billionaire Mark Cuban are also owners of CryptoPunks. 

CryptoPunk’s 2021:

CryptoPunks started the year out with floor prices much lower than they would see by the end of 2021. In February, the cheapest Punk could be purchased for just $36,000. That same month, Hall likened the project to the popular online game Fortnite in an interview. According to Hall, the large amount of money spent on skins within Fortnite shows that online personas are valuable to people. Shortly thereafter, CryptoPunks kicked off an NFT craze that ultimately led to Collins Dictionary proclaiming “NFT” to be the word of the year.

In March, CryptoPunks #3100 and #7804 were sold for nearly $7.6 million each, setting lofty new records. In an interview, Watkinson attributed the rise of CryptoPunks to COVID-19 lockdowns, saying that flexing one’s wealth could only be done virtually and that this was why the “crypto-wealthy” were buying CryptoPunks.

In October, CryptoPunks caught the attention of the masses when #9998 was “sold” for more than $500 million. The buyer, who is most likely the same person as the seller, borrowed ETH through flash loans to purchase the Punk. After some time, the funds were returned to the buyer to pay off the loans. Since the Punk had a sale history representing half a billion dollars, the owner tried to sell it for $1 billion. However, because of the blockchain’s transparency, the community was able to see what went down as it unfolded and left the culprit with an unsold Punk.

The huge CryptoPunk sales of March were very hard records to beat. However, come December, the No. 1 spot was claimed by CryptoPunk #4156, which sold for $10.2 million.

CryptoPunk’s 2022:

CryptoPunks started 2022 still on top of the NFT game. The project has thus far recorded an all-time sales volume of over $2 billion. Even as the crypto market started to slow down, the monthly volume for the collection stayed above $100 million. On Feb. 12, the record for the most expensive on-chain sale was once again broken when #5822 sold for nearly $24 million. On Feb. 23, Sotheby’s was scheduled to auction a large collection of CryptoPunks worth $30 million. However, the anonymous owner of the collection backed out at the last minute, saying, “Nvm, decided to hodl.” 

While the prices make the project stand out, CryptoPunks will continue to popularize NFTs and blockchain-based ownership in 2022. While many will likely remain skeptical of the idea, questioning why someone would “buy a JPG file that can be copied and pasted,” those who truly understand the idea behind NFTs know that true ownership is written on the blockchain and cannot be tampered with.