CryptoPunks
Overview and everything that you should know before buying your first CryptoPunk NFT.
History
We covered little bit of history of CryptoPunks in the article about NFTs and its history through the time. But in that article we put just a little bit of data so let’s take a bigger look into the history of CryptoPunks.
The first appearance of CryptoPunks was in 2017. The authors, who go by the name Larva Labs now, John Watkinson and Matt Hall were in that time experimenting with anti-establishment art.
The CryptoPunks were originally created on a picture generator. Head, skin colors and other attributes were randomly distributed. There were some rare ones which were not necessary people but they were generated as an alien, ape or zombie. The total number of punks generated reached 10 000. From this number only 44 are wearing a beanie and only 147 have a red mohawk. Also 88 have a mustache and only 461 have an eye patch.
At first, the whole project was not that big of a boom. That was until Mashable wrote about this collection under the headline: “This Ethereum-based project could change how we think about digital art.” After this article whole collection was gone in matter of hours.
After this the CryptoPunk became something like the OG NFT collection. It may have started the NFT art movement, which now overlapped to art shows where buyers are being offered the choice between a physical painting and an NFT image of it. Visa is another huge company that acknowledged the existence of NFTs by buying its own collectible.
What is it?
Some of you may ask, what exactly are these CryptoPunks that are so wanted in the world of NFTs in these days. CryptoPunk is a pixilated art image, 24x24 pixels big, and they are generated algorithmically. As the name suggests most of them are males or females pictured in punk-looking clothing or accessories. But as we said, this applies only for the most of them, but not for all of them. As we mentioned, there are some rare types that looks like Apes, Zombies and even the odd Alien. And every single CryptoPunk has its own profile where you can find his/her attributes as well as if they are already owned by someone or if they are up for sale.
How to get one?
The way to get one is pretty simple and if you are a regular reader of our articles, you will be able to do that in a few quick steps.
- You will have to download and then install MetaMask wallet. By using this the website you will be using will have access to your Ethereum account.
- If you are new user of MetaMask wallet you will have to buy some Ethereum which you'll be using to purchase the NFTs. You can buy some directly through MetaMask through Coinbase just by clicking one button in the wallet.
- Once you have done all of this and you have MetaMask up and running with some Ethereum in it, you just need to find on which platform you want to buy the CryptoPunk NFT. For example you can do that on platform, which is currently one of the biggest with this purpose, called OpenSea. There, if you register and connect your MetaMask you will be automatically able to bid on, buy or sell CryptoPunks.
Interesting info
Just to understand that CryptoPunks collection is one of the biggest and most known NFT projects, here are some data about the sales, auctions and owners. All data will be shown in ETH and also in dollars to get the idea.
The lowest price for which you can get a CryptoPunk currently is 72.89 ETH ($225,584.35 USD).
Over the year 2021, the average bid was 62.2 ETH ($192,513.29 USD). In 2022 it is 3.77 ETH ($11,672.42 USD) so far. Total value of all current bids right now is 2,112.07 ETH ($6,536,556.32 USD).
The average price of a CryptoPunk NFT in the year 2021 was 80.56 ETH ($249,336.73 USD) and overall, the total value of punks that were sold last year reached the number 642,902.61 ETH ($1,989,693,635.36 USD).
The most expensive CryptoPunk that was ever sold was CryptoPunk #7523. This NFT was sold at Sotheby’s for staggering $11.8 million. The NFT depicts an alien wearing a knitted cap and medical mask, with an earring in its right ear. It got named “COVID Alien”.
Thank you for reading.
