What Are CryptoPunks? – CryptosRus

Today we get into the project that started the entire NFT craze: CryptoPunks. 

COVERED:

• What are CryptoPunks?
• Who Created Them?
• How Do They Work?
• What Makes Them Unique?
• How To Buy Them?
• Conclusion

WHAT ARE CRYPTOPUNKS?

CryptoPunks are one of the first collections of NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain. These are collectible pieces of crypto art, represented by NFTs. An NFT is effectively a deed of ownership to a digital item, and in this case, holding a CryptoPunks NFT means that you are the sole owner of one of a kind pixel avatar. There are 10,000 small, 24×24 pixel, 8-bit style portraits with a unique set of attributes and traits which means that there’s an array of designs: people, zombies, apes, and aliens. The aliens and zombies are among the most popular avatars that have commanded some of the highest sale prices to date.
So there’s a fixed supply of 10,000 unique punks whose proof of ownership is stored on the Ethereum blockchain. These avatars as a collection of digital art are sparking the modern CryptoArt trend. Each CryptoPunk is unique which means that no two characters are exactly alike.

Prices of CryptoPunks skyrocketed with the boom of the wider NFT market in 2021, leading to several sales in excess of $1 million for each Punk. It is one of the first NFT projects and has since paved the way for other successful NFT collections such as CryptoKitties, Bored Ape Yacht Club, and CrypToadz. The project became more popular in 2021 after some CryptoPunks were sold for millions of dollars, making them some of the most expensive NFTs.

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WHO CREATED THEM?

CryptoPunks was launched on June 23, 2017, by the New York-based firm Larva Labs founded by the cryptocurrency veterans Matt Hall and John Watkinson. They started this project as an experiment on the Ethereum blockchain. CryptoPunks were released for free back in 2017. All you had to do to get one was pay the associate Ethereum transaction fee. Ethereum owners snatched up the 9,000 CryptoPunks that were released to the public, while Larva Labs held onto the rest.

Inspired by the 1970’s London Punk movement, the CryptoPunks creators designed the digital characters as a collection of “misfits and nonconformists” according to Hall and Watkinson. These CryptoPunks were initially conceptualized for use in games and apps but their artistic approach to portrait images has since inspired many other Profile Picture (PFP) and NFT collections like Cool Cats, Bored Ape YachtsClub, and World of Women to name a few. A combination of different attributes mixed together in which 3840 are female and 6039 are male. The popularity of these artworks has immensely increased since then. Christie’s auction house is even auctioning off collections with estimates that run into the millions.

HOW DO THEY WORK?

At the time the project was launched, the ERC-721 token protocol that is now used for NFTs did in even exist. Larva Labs had to work with ERC-20. In a Punk fashion, the team ended up modifying the ERC-20 code just enough to provide non-fungible items, acting as an inspiration for the ERC-721 development shortly after.

We can also determine the authenticity of each CryptoPunk by hashing its reference image and comparing it to a specific image hash in the token’s contract. Larva Labs created a composite image that contained all 10,000 Punks as the images are too large to be stored on the blockchain. A hash of this is present in the CryptoPunks token contract. For example, CryptoPunk #7804 is the 7804th Punk in the large, composite image.

WHAT MAKES THEM UNIQUE?

The distinctive artistic direction of CryptoPunks is derived from the unique attributes that they possess. No two punks are alike and some have traits that are rarer than others. And because of its creative simplicity and diversity, the pixel art aesthetic direction of the collection has become readily recognizable.

Certain traits have emerged as more desirable and hence more valuable within the collection. This scarcity of specific traits has been a driver of collectibility. For instance, only 44 punks are wearing a beanie, 48 wearing a choker, and 78 with buck teeth. Alien avatars are the rarest out of all the CryptoPunks. As a result, Alien CryptoPunks are among the most expensive NFTs of all time. One of the pale-looking Alien punk with a headband currently holds the record for the highest selling CryptoPunk at 4200 ETH which is approximately $7.58 million at the time of sale in March 2021.

Watkinson and Hall also chose to create them on the Ethereum blockchain before the development of the ERC-721 standard, which means that the CryptoPunks do not follow the same technical framework used by the majority of other NFTs on the market today. Thanks to the small data size of each image, CryptoPunk is one of the few NFT collections to be stored fully on-chain, meaning that both NFT and the image themselves are kept on the Ethereum blockchain.

HOW TO BUY THEM?

The Ethereum technology platform is where digital currency, global payments, and other digital applications take place. Ethereum calls itself a decentralized financial system and digital economic community where creators can earn, send, receive, borrow and stream funds worldwide.

Initially, anyone with an Ethereum wallet could claim CryptoPunks for free. All 10,000 characters were quickly claimed. Now, if you want to own one, you have to purchase it from an owner on the blockchain marketplace.
CryptoPunks have also made their way onto OpenSea, a leading NFT marketplace on Ethereum. However, these pixel punks are a little different from most of the NFTs that are available on the market. They have been wrapped into ERC-721 tokens so that they can easily be traded on NFT marketplaces. These tokens can easily be converted back to their original ERC-20 form. The whole process of wrapping and unwrapping takes place on Wrapped PUNKS and it can be done with a MetaMask wallet containing a CryptoPunk.

CONCLUSION

CryptoPunks at one time were pioneers in pure artistic value on the blockchain while they’re no longer unique when it comes to NFTs. Unlike CryptoKitties, or Axie Infinity in which each NFT its own utility within the game, each individual CryptoPunk is nothing more than a simple image. However, You can still see their massive popularity with the number of projects directly inspired by CryptoPunks.