CryptoPunks is a non-fungible token (NFT) collection on the Ethereum blockchain. The project was launched in June 2017 by the Larva Labs studio,[1] a two-person team consisting of Canadian software developers Matt Hall and John Watkinson. The experimental project was inspired by the London punk scenes, the cyberpunk movement,[2] and electronic music artists Daft Punk. The crypto art blockchain project was an inspiration for the ERC-721 standard for NFTs and the modern crypto art movement, which has since become a part of the cryptocurrency and decentralized finance ecosystems on multiple blockchains.

CryptoPunks
Six examples of the 10,000 randomly generated CryptoPunks
Developer(s)	Larva Labs, now owned by Yuga Labs
Designer(s)	John Watkinson & Matt Hall
Platform(s)	Ethereum
Release	June 2017
Genre(s)	Collectable

CryptoPunks are commonly credited with starting the NFT craze of 2021, along with other early projects including CryptoKitties, Bored Ape Yacht Club, and the sale of Beeple's Everydays: The First 5000 Days. There are 10,000 CryptoPunk tokens in both the V1 and V2 contracts.[3][4][5] Due to their rarity and exclusivity, they sell for higher prices on the open market and have sold using auction houses like Christie's.[6] On March 2, 2022, an anonymous user donated CryptoPunk #5364 to Ukraine's government Ethereum wallet public address to help fund the Ukrainian government against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[7]

On March 11, 2022 it was announced that all of the CryptoPunks IP was acquired by Yuga Labs (parent company and creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club project) for an undisclosed sum. Immediately, Yuga Labs announced they were giving full commercial rights to CryptoPunks owners.[8][9] On 7th May 2022 the transfer was completed, and the whole CryptoPunks marketplace was moved to the new Yuga Labs owned website.[10]

Concept

There are 10,000 unique CryptoPunks (6,039 male and 3,840 female), all of which are made digitally scarce through the use of blockchain technology. Each one was algorithmically generated through computer code and thus no two characters are exactly alike, with some traits being rarer than others. They were originally released for free and could be claimed by anyone with an Ethereum wallet. The only costs to claim a CryptoPunk during their initial release were Ethereum (ETH) "gas fees", which at the time, were negligible due to little use of both the Ethereum blockchain and little knowledge of the project as well.[11]

Certain traits and types of characters are rarer than others. While many projects of more recent development often sample through hundreds of possible traits, the CryptoPunks project was not as complex. Most of the 10,000 total punks are humans, but there are also three special types: Zombie (88), Ape (24), and Alien (9).[12][13] Aside from character type, there was a potential of 87 additional attributes.

Controversies

Flash loan

In October 2021, a single NFT transaction was made for 124,457 Ether ($532 million USD at the time of the sale) regarding CryptoPunk #9998, much higher than all previous NFT sales, leading to speculation on social media that this could have been some kind of scam, a security exploit or money laundering. Larva Labs said that the purchase was made with a flash loan where the NFT's owner bought the item from themselves with borrowed money, taking out and repaying the loan within a single blockchain transaction,[14] subsequently invalidating the sale from the asset's historic and from all the related statistics.[15]

Sotheby's 104 CryptoPunks auction

In early 2022, a Sotheby's Auction for a single lot of 104 CryptoPunks was announced.[16] The auction took place on 23 February 2022, but its seller (0x650d) changed their mind 23 minutes after the auction began and decided to withdraw the auction to keep the whole lot.[17]

See also

• Rare Pepe
• EtherRock
• Bored Ape
• List of most expensive non-fungible tokens

References

External links

• Official website