What is a Crypto Punk NFT?

Crypto Punk NFT is a remarkable collection of digital images. It has an interesting history and remains one of the most popular NFT collections.

In this blog post, we will discuss Crypto Punks NFT, how it became popular and why it is one of the most expensive NFT collections in the crypto space. 

Introduction to Crypto Punks

Larva Labs is a development team who creates mobile games, digital design and virtual art. There are only two people making up the Larva Labs team. They are Matt Hall and John Watkinson. 

Watkinson and Hall invented a pixelated character generator after taking inspiration from the London punk scene and cyberpunk novels and films. In 2017, they produced 10,000 pixelated images and stored them in the Ethereum blockchain. These 10,000 unique Crypto Punks NFT became the highly popular NFT project that many people still want to buy to this day. 

The CryptoPunks project was meant to be an experiment on the Ethereum blockchain. 

What happened to the Crypto Punks NFTs?

The CryptoPunk NFTs had a fixed supply of 10,000 collectible digital images. Nine thousand pixelated images were publicly released while Larva Labs kept the remaining one thousand Punks. 

People who wanted to own a Punk didn’t have to pay for the NFT itself. They just had to pay the gas fee to cover for the computing energy used in creating the Crypto Punks. Back in 2017, the computing power was quite low since NFTs and DeFi were not popular yet. 

Nevertheless, Cryptopunks NFT acquired higher prices in the NFT marketplace. Some of them sold for millions of dollars. There are investors who spend for NFT projects with a huge budget. Early investors were fortunate to buy cryptopunks at lower prices before it exploded in the market.

Crypto Punk Features

The backgrounds of each punk revealed its market status. First, ones with a blue background are not for sale and don’t accept bids. Second, a red background means that its owner is putting it up for sale. Third, the images with purple background mean that there is an active bidding. 

Each pixelated image is a 24×24 pixel, 8-bit style portrait with its defining characteristics. The five broad Crypto Punk categories are male, female, zombie, ape, and alien. Every image that belongs to these categories has its accessories or styles. 

To enumerate, there are 6,039 male punks and 3,840 female punks. Nevertheless, other punks don’t have any special features. These kinds of punks are called “Genesis Punks.”

Additionally, Larva Labs created the Crypto Punk NFTs using the ERC-20 token standard. Notably, ERC-20 is also the token standard that MANA and ENJ used. The Punks collection played a role in inspiring the development of the ERC-721 standard that many Ethereum-based collections utilize recently. 

Why are Crypto Punks Special?

This NFT collection is one of the first to be built on the Ethereum blockchain. Larva Labs managed to create history for themselves by being part of the crypto space even before non-fungible tokens received the hype.

Next, it is scarce. Since its developers limited the production, its rarity makes it an extremely valuable digital asset.

Moreover, each Crypto Punk differs from one another. Therefore, the presence or absence of distinguishing attributes can make it more valuable compared to others. To illustrate, there are only nine aliens and twenty-four apes. Forty-four punks wear a beanie, forty-eight sport a choker, seventy-eight of them have buck teeth, and 128 have rosy cheeks. 

Additionally, there are 8 genesis punks. These are the characters without any special traits. In the same token, Punk #8348 contains seven attributes.

Memorable Crypto Punk Sales

The highest recorded sale for a single Crypto Punk image happened in February 2022 when Deepak Thapliyal, chief executive officer (CEO) of cloud blockchain infrastructure startup Chain bought CryptoPunk 5822 for 8,000 Ether (ETH) or roughly $24 million. CryptoPunk 5822 is an alien type that wears a blue bandana. Also, it is one of the rarest punks because only 0.09% have this kind of attribute.

Along with that sale, CryptoPunk 2924 sold for almost $4.5 million worth of ETH in September 2022.

There are also some celebrities who managed to get their hands on the Crypto Punk NFTs. Jay-Z bought one Crypto Punk in April 2021 for over $120,000 worth of ETH. Additionally, Snoop Dogg bought nine Crypto Punks that included two zombie punks. The two zombie punks in his collection have a value of $2 million each. 

Lately, Serena Williams, the world-renowned tennis champion, received CryptoPunk 2950 as a gift from her husband. 

Over all, the whole collection managed to accumulate $2.4 billion in its trades.

Final Word

The Crypto Punk NFT collection is considered a NFT pioneer. So much so that many crypto enthusiasts see its influence on succeeding NFT collections like bored ape yacht club (BAYC). It became a standard that later NFT developers followed. Its design is a refreshing take on art and shows how creative digital art can become. 

The future looks bright for the punks. They have a possibility of entering the mainstream art space because some of the pixelated images have been put up for auction at Christie’s and Sotheby’s.

In conclusion, there will be more people who will take interest in the crypto punks and it is highly likely that its value will continue increasing.