How to own SubstraPunks, the first NFTs in Live Substrate Blockchain (Polkadot)

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Coinmonks

6 min readFeb 12, 2021

SubstraPunks have been recently raising some great vibes. There have been accusations that SubstraPunks are just mere copies of the Ethereum-based CryptoPunks. The Substrapunks were initially created as Testnet NFTs by Unique Network. There were only 10,000 created and were given away for free in August 2020. They were created as a homage to the original Ethereum Cryptopunks. The community soon started trading the same via OTC. Seeing the excitement of the community, Unique designed a Marketplace in November 2020.

In the next 3 months the SubstraPunks were traded repeatedly:

• Total number of punks traded in the marketplace: 514

• Total turnover: 546.88 KSM

• Average Price: 1.06 KSM

CryptoPunks (along with Cryptokitties) will remain the original OGs. However, there is no denying the fact that Substrapunks will always remain the first NFTs to be created in a Live Substrate Network. Also, Cryptopunks has its own OGs and the value has risen very high. With the entire world waiting to onboard on a Blockchain, SubstraPunks can find its own place and in a new generation of OGs.

All of the Substrapunks had been claimed for free in August 2020. Their trades started with a floor price of around $10-$15 for the less rare punks, over a period of time the floor has risen to approximately $50. Note that these punks are still in Testnet and would be automatically moved to the Unique mainnet in few months.

So how get hold of a SubstraPunk? Here is a stepwise guide

Get Kusama (KSM)

Kusama is listed in multiple exchanges with multiple pairs. A list of such exchanges are given below

Let us use Binance.

Start the trade, buy KSM. Remember to buy as much Kusama you need at one go, collecting SubstraPunks and trading them can be addictive.

Download Polkadot.js

Download Polkadot.js from the official Polkadot Github. (Always double-check the link)

In this guide, we will download it for the chrome extension. This app does not have full wallet functionality and will be used for signing transactions. Create an account and save your private keys.

The extension will have your substrate address.

Ensure that in settings you have selected the address format for Kusama Relay Chain.

For account-management go to the explorer using this link.

This will default to Polkadot.

Change it to Kusama by clicking the top-left icon and click switch.

In the meantime send your KSM from Binance to the Kusama Wallet address of Polkadot.js. Note: You can also add the same account in Math Wallet in case you want to access it in a decentralized way)

In the explorer, go to Accounts, you will be able to find your transferred KSM Balance.