After 5 Years, Is CryptoPunks Still a Good Investment？
Key Insights:
- Birth and rarity of CryptoPunks: pixelated minimalist characters are its prominent features, along with 87 traits to measure its rarity
- Development and history of CryptoPunks: NFT developed from App
- How do CryptoPunks build the foundation of NFT? ERC-721 was created by changing ERC-20
- The process of value promotion of CryptoPunks: from free gifts to collection
- The meaning of CryptoPunks: the spiritual symbol of the NFT world exists forever
What is the most punk behavior in Web3? Maybe buying CryptoPunks NFT is a good choice.
As the NFT project with the second-largest market value at present, CryptoPunks can become a leader in the competitive NFT field, which undoubtedly reflects its strong community spirit and strength.
It is worth mentioning that CryptoPunks is not only one of the earliest NFT Series in history, but also plays an important role in “building” and “defining” NFT standards. Up to now, the value of this punk pixel-style character has been beyond doubt, so we hope to take you through this article to understand the origin of the value of CryptoPunks.
Now let’s briefly introduce the background story of CryptoPunks:
- The CryptoPunks are 10,000 uniquely generated 24x24 pixel art images. Most are punky-looking guys and girls, but there are a few rarer types mixed in: Apes, Zombies, and even the odd Alien.
- CryptoPunks has 87 unique traits. The maximum number of traits a single CryptoPunks can have is seven. At present, only Cryptopunks#8348 have 7 traits at the same time. At the same time, there are only 8 CryptoPunks with 0 traits in the whole collection.
- CryptoPunks was acquired by Yuga labs in 2022, and with the acquisition, it released full commercial copyright to the holders.
- CryptoPunks have a far-reaching impact on NFT. ERC-721 is cited as the NFT standard framework.
- The company of CryptoPunks, Larva Labs, is a smartphone application development company composed of two founders. The prototype of CryptoPunks comes from the APP version pixel character generator they developed.
- In April this year, Tiffany & Co. launched high-end jewelry based on Cryptopunks#3167 owned by Alexandre Arnault, vice president of the company. The jewelry is the first NFT jewelry product in reality.
What are CryptoPunks？
CryptoPunks, launched in June 2017, is an Ethereum avatar NFT project produced by Larva Labs. In the 24*24 square picture, the pixelated minimalist character is a prominent feature of CryptoPunks. At first glance, you may not be able to taste the artistry, but the impact of CryptoPunks on NFT is undoubtedly huge.
Each CryptoPunks has its own profile page and can display its traits and ownership status. There are 87 special attributes called “traits” in CryptoPunks, which are:
Headdress (such as hat and glasses)
Hairstyle (e.g. blonde hair, braids)
Facial features (e.g. ruddy cheeks, beard)
Facial decoration (such as earrings, masks, glasses)
Makeup (e.g. eye makeup, lip color)
Expression (e.g. smile, frown)
Neck decoration (necklace)
A CryptoPunks can have 0–7 traits, including 8 CryptoPunks with 0 traits and only one with 7 traits. From the perspective of scarcity, CryptoPunks#8348 with 7 traits and CryptoPunks without 8 traits have the highest value.
Why CryptoPunks? The Value of CryptoPunks
As of May 31, CryptoPunks had a total market value of US $1.93 billion. Although it has experienced substantial price fluctuations, it is still the second-largest NFT project in the NFT market.
However, great projects are often born out of simple inspiration. When we trace the history of CryptoPunks, we will find out why CryptoPunks can become the symbol of punks in the crypto world and why CryptoPunks have not provided any ecological functions except avatars since their birth, all the while still displaying such longevity.
Larva Labs, the creator of CryptoPunks, started out as a small studio with only two founders. Its founders Matt Hall and John Watkinson are mobile application developers working for large technology companies such as Google and Microsoft.
Their love for technology and their admiration for the value of technology have kept them thinking about the originality of technology. “Is there any code that can generate unique and proprietary images?” Following this idea, the two founders continued to study algorithms, and successfully developed an application for smartphones — a pixel character generator. Although this application runs on smartphones, each image generated by code is unique, which is also the coolest thing for CryptoPunks. The Web3 spirit attached to it is also gradually emerging.
Subsequently, Matt Hall and John Watkinson began to pay attention to blockchain technology, which is open, transparent, tamper-proof and permanent……These characteristics coincide with their pursuit of technological dominance and proof of ownership.
As they said at Christie’s auction on May 11, 2021, “In the early days of the blockchain movement, there was a tumultuous and anti-system spirit. We believe that a collection of Mavericks would be appropriate.”
A unique group of people, this is the spiritual core of the 10,000 characters described by CryptoPunks. So they took the Punk movement in London in the late 1970s, as well as a large number of popular culture and CryptoPunks works (such as the Joker, Blade Runner, etc.) as a reference, and generated 10,000 unique characters in a few months.
Then they recorded the 10,000 characters after similarity checking to Ethereum through smart contracts. Compared with today’s NFT projects, although these characters are not generated by Ethereum contracts, each change of ownership will be truthfully recorded after being registered on the blockchain, becoming the first non-fungible token on the chain.
In order to explore the scarcity of digital assets, Larva Labs also made some changes to Ethereum’s ERC-20 protocol. They have completed the definition of non-fungible tokens, and these definitions made by Larva Labs have become the basis of ERC-721 and completed the second step of today’s NFT project, that is, to make it irreplaceable.
As we all know, CryptoPunks was initially provided free of charge to all those who own Ethereum wallets, but now its floor price has risen to 47.65 ETH. What happened during this period?
Compared with the star NFT project which sold out in a few hours now, only 20 users received CryptoPunks on the second day of its release. Until June 17, 2017, Mashable published an article entitled “This Ethereum-based project could change how we think about digital art,” which introduced the significance of CryptoPunks in exploring scarcity and collectability. After that, the remaining 9,000 CryptoPunks also found their own place.
Up to now, except for CryptoPunks acquired by Yuga Labs, it has no new activities other than collection and display — NO synthesis, mutant, or airdrop, but CryptoPunks still maintains a relatively high value.
From the story of its birth, we can clearly see the significance of CryptoPunks to the entire crypto world — it is the beginning of NFT history, and formulating the basic rules of the NFT world, making scarcity a unique attribute that is not interfered with by human beings. CryptoPunks inspired all the projects that emerged after it. In the hearts of many crypto natives, it will always be the first in the NFT world.
Mashable said in his 2017 article: Someday, owning a CryptoPunk might signify just how early of an adopter you were into the world of Ethereum and its thriving digital art scene. ”
Obviously, such a prediction has become a reality. Having CryptoPunks means that you agree with the spiritual core of CryptoPunks, and it is also the symbol of OG in the crypto world.
To sum up, CryptoPunks has received intensive attention in the NFT field due to its scarcity and creativity. At the same time, it has also become a source of pride for early NFT participants and visionaries. CryptoPunks is one of the most important projects in NFT history. Even if there are any unexpected changes in the NFT market, CryptoPunks will be remembered as a part of history. Perhaps CryptoPunks can exist together with the NFT world as a spiritual symbol, which is its value.
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