We continue to review the most expensive collections. Over time, marketplace trading volumes have crossed the billions of US dollars, while the media and celebrities fuel public interest in cryptocurrencies and NFTs.
Last time we studied the BAYC collection of nft monkeys – today, CryptoPunks NFT is on the agenda (bought in March by Yuga Labs – creators of “bored monkeys”)
Based on the Ethereum blockchain and hosted on Opensea, however, the acquisition is only possible on the internal market of the CryptoPunks site.
The collection consists of 10 thousand unique male and female pixel characters (aliens, monkeys, and zombies), consisting of 87 rarity attributes that assign a value to the token.
Rare attributes of CryptoPunks:
1. Head – Beanie Hat
2. Eyes – Welding goggles
3. Facial Hair – Lush Beard
4. Neck – Choker
5. Additional item – Medical mask
6. Mouth – protruding teeth
7. Skin features – Dots on the face
8. Ears – Earring
9. Nose – Clown nose
10 Skin Type – Alien
History of creation
In June 2017, the Canadian Larva Labs team, consisting of two developers, Matt Hall and John Watkinson, launched the CryptoPunks project. The developers were inspired by the motives of the London punk scene, the features of the cyberpunk genre, and the work of the cult duo Daft Punk. And if inspiration was drawn from where Punk is indicated, then the collection itself will have a corresponding bias.
The developers planned to give away 9 thousand digital tokens for free to users with an Ethereum wallet, leaving a thousand for themselves (Devpunks). The project was highlighted on Mashable, and after that, all 9 thousand tokens were sent out within 24 hours.
Cryptopunks in our time
After several years of a regular cycle of resale on the secondary market, nft punks have become one of the largest collections in terms of the trading volume. The minimum lot price is 74.68 ETH ($142.21 thousand), and it will be difficult to describe the maximum in text. Attaching a screenshot:
In the second place, the maximum value is a lot, with a price of 250 thousand ETH ($477 million), and the most expensive purchase was made with the equivalent of more than $500 million.
Such a substantial increase in value from de facto free tokens to millions of dollars of NFTs is primarily due to the limited circulation and age of the collection (large trading volume with literally five years of history for each token) and the large community supporting the collection.
CryptoPunks And Celebrities
Famous people are also interested in crypto punks. Among them are Jay-Z (he put the token on his Twitter avatar), Snoop Dogg, Steve Aoki, and Alexis Ohanian.
Twitter Jay-Z
Alexis Ohanian wore Punk #2950 on his cuff collar at the Met Gala.
Interesting Cases
Once, the seller put up a lot for 4.44 ETH ($19.3 thousand) instead of 4.444 ($19.5 million). The price of a dot instead of a comma is sometimes worth millions of dollars.
In August 2021, Visa joined the cryptopunk community by purchasing NFT CryptoPunk #7610. Later, the head of the cryptocurrency department, Kai Sheffield, noted that this collection is a “cultural icon of the crypto community.”
Followers
Suppose you carefully study the NFT trading platforms. In that case, you will see that there are a sufficient number of projects that repeat the features of the Cryptopunks collection but attempts to repeat the success are doomed to failure. Borrowed ideas don’t stand out, and people don’t always like parasitism. However, the main argument remains the original collection.
For example, a collection of sound midi-punks
Or Lego Punks
Prospects
Certain factors contribute to the growth of the potential of the collection and
Key Features:
- Scarcity (limited number of tokens)
- Collection age
- Own platform for lots
- Many imitators
- celebrity holders
- Collaborations with famous brands (Cryptopunks x Tiffany & Co.)
- Project age
Based on the above points, we can conclude that CryptoPunks will become more expensive, and interest in this collection will not fade away.
For example, CryptoPunks recently collaborated with Tiffany & Co, which only increases interest in NFTs and makes the collection more promising in terms of value formation.
It’s also worth adding that Yuga Labs (the creators of BAYC) have acquired Larva Labs.
Of course, this situation did not excite the crypto community, but such a drastic change opened up huge benefits for holders. Similar to BAYC, users can monetize their punks and use them directly in their projects. Yuga Labs, in turn, began to own the most famous collections with a total capitalization of more than $4 billion.
