Cryptopunks — 8-bit images for millions of dollars
Cryptopunks is one of the world’s first collections of NFT images. When the project first started, they were distributed (airdropped) for free. Today, the cost of the most expensive copy exceeds $ 20 million.
The history of NFT by Larva Labs
The idea to release a set of funny images came to Matt Hall and John Watkinson (Larva Labs) in 2017. They wrote a special program and in a short time generated 10,000 unique 8-bit portraits of representatives of punk culture
The dimensions of the original images are 24x24 pixels. The characters differ in gender, skin color, hairstyle, accessories, and facial features. Some of the attributes are more common, whereas some are less. The collection of cryptopanks includes several particularly rare specimens — these are monkeys, aliens, bald heroes without attributes, and maximally equipped punks.
The authors of the project distributed the created characters to everyone. To get a portrait, it was enough to have a wallet in the Ethereum blockchain. The potential customer had to submit an application and report their involvement in punk culture and pay a transaction fee on the network. The generated tokens quickly dispersed.
Cryptopanks: the price increases as the awareness of the rarity
The rarity of certain NFT punks was not immediately discovered. But after some time, the owners eventually noticed patterns in the repeatability of attributes. Tokens began to be ranked by price.
The pricing of images from Larva Labs today is subject to the same laws as the pricing of works of art and collectibles. The more rare a particular token is, the more fans are willing to pay for owning it.
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The most expensive cryptopank was sold on February 12, 2022. The bet on token #5822 has reached $ 23.7 million. It turned out to be an alien in a blue bandana. At the same time, there are only 9 aliens and 333 characters in bandanas in the collection.
The cheapest available punk by mid-March 2022 cost 180 thousand dollars. About 1300 other images of the collection have a similar value.
What is the value of NFT punks?
To date, the capitalization of CryptoPunks is more than $2 billion. It is the leader among Ethereum-based projects and the second-largest among NFTS as of March 14, 2022.
The value of the collection is primarily due to the historical factor. 8-bit images of Hall and Watkins are at the origins of the development of the crypto-art.
Among other advantages, experts call:
● Aesthetic value — the collection reflects a real-life social and artistic phenomenon — the punk culture of London in the 1970s.
● Uniqueness and autonomy — the code for the sale and exchange of NFT-punks lies in the blockchain and is not subject to correction, which means that the quantity and quality of the created images will remain unchanged.
● Community of supporters — the project inspired a whole wave of affiliated art. The audience of fans is constantly growing.
● Recognition of the art community — cyberpunks are put up for auction, in museums, and put on the same level as tangible works of art.
From the category of amateur collectibles, NFT cryptopanks quickly turned into a valuable investment tool. Visa Corporation is among the buyers of the token. It can be seen that the interest and cost will only grow
