What are CryptoPunks? A Complete Guide

CryptoPunks look completely ordinary at first glance. Small, pixelated faces don’t seem exciting to anyone, but this is where you could not be more wrong. CryptoPunks was one of the earliest Non Fungible Tokens to be generated on the Ethereum blockchain. If one got hold of one of these NFTs way back then, they would be quite amazed at the returns they would be sitting on now. This entire project consists of 10000 24*24 portraits, all algorithmically generated. CryptoPunks has gained a huge following over the years due to the unique traits in each of their images and its significance as one of the first NFT projects.

In this blog, we discuss ‘What are CryptoPunks blockchain?’ in detail.

What is a CryptoPunk?

CryptoPunks are 24*24 images digitally generated via algorithms on the Ethereum network. Each image is unique and in limited supply, which is why they are valuable. The developers had generated 10,000 images and won’t release any more CryptoPunks now.

They had to work with the ERC-20 token protocol since the presently used ERC-721 protocol for NFTs didn’t even exist back then.

A fun fact about what are CryptoPunks is that since these were given out for free when they were not famous to anyone with an Ethereum blockchain wallet, many owners became millionaires overnight due to their huge popularity, that too without having to invest a penny.

Who Created CryptoPunks?

John Watkinson and Matt Hall were two developers from Larva Labs who were inspired by the London punk scene and different movies and magazines on punk. They had initially started this as a fun experimental project, which has moved in a completely different direction, as we can see now. Using algorithms, they generated 10,000 unique images and hosted them on the Ethereum network in June 2017. They held back 1000 CryptoPunks for themselves, and the others were distributed to others for free on the network. With a few aliens, apes, and zombies in the mix, Larva Labs started a revolution in the NFT space.