Late Monday, popular nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, platform OpenSea once again delisted the CryptoPunks V1 collection, which spiraled into existence along with the iconic CryptoPunks V2 collection due to a smart contract bug. This was allegedly due to a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice issued by CryptoPunks V2 developers Larva Labs to OpenSea. As the company is also creator of the CryptoPunks V1 collection, this move has struck some as strange.
LL has forced @opensea to remove V1 Punks collection because of a DMCA takedown.
We are responding via a counter-notice from our counsel in due course. We look forward to updating you further.
In the meantime, trade using https://t.co/KjPg88vDqE or @LooksRareNFT pic.twitter.com/1qmgdQrR7l
— V1 Punks (@v1punks) February 7, 2022
For many years, OpenSea banned the CryptoPunks V1 collection as users shunned their authenticity. However, its recent listing on competing NFT platforms such as LookRare led to an increase in recognition and led OpenSea to rescind its first ban. At time of publication, the wrapped CryptoPunks V1 collection had surpassed 315.44 ETH ($974,000) in total volume traded and continues to operate.
But the battle for the authenticity of the NFT collection appears to be heating up. In an announcement posted in the official CryptoPunks V1 Discord, developer Velinova.eth alleges that they’ve spoken with a “top-tier IP Attorney from the US” who claims they are “lawfully able to carry on in the trade of these CryptoPunks.” Meanwhile, the community is preparing a counter-notice to the OpenSea takedown. On top of that, its NFT holders have chosen to rename the collection to “CryptoPunks V1 313 WPV1,” partly to reflect the NFTs’ wrapped nature for patching up the aforementioned bug.
CryptoPunks V1 community announcement | Source: Discord
The issue of CryptoPunks’ authenticity may have significant financial consequences. With a total of 824,947.17 ETH traded ($2.55 billion), CryptoPunks V2 is the most popular NFT collection globally. However, a part of the collection’s high demand stems from its scarcity, with a supply fixed of 10,000 Punks. If another 10,000 images from CrptoPunks V1 are legitimized, it could potentially dilute the brand, leading to a rapid decrease in the NFTs’ price.
Larva Labs is the creator of the iconic CryptoPunks NFT collection.
The design studio also launched a collection called Meebits last year, banking $80 million in a day.
Larva Labs has taken a hard stance against CryptoPunks copycats and recently taken controversial action against V1 Punks born out of the original CryptoPunks smart contract.
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The CryptoPunks community is growing increasingly frustrated with Larva Labs. Crypto Briefing’s editor Chris Williams explains why.
How Larva Labs Tarnished Its Reputation
Throughout last year, I spent a lot of time cursing at all of the NFT blue chips I missed (the Crypto Briefing team is well aware of this; I talked about it enough on our daily calls). Of all the stuff I failed to pull the trigger on, I was most disappointed about CryptoPunks—it was such an obvious trade afterthatBeeple auction, so it didn’t really come as a shock when they were going for reasonably sized house prices over NFT summer.
But more recently, CryptoPunks have fallen out of favor, leaving me less salty about my miss. There are many reasons for the project’s fall from grace, including its community of occasional close-minded snobs who struck it lucky by being early to Ethereum, and a certain collection of apes that’s caught the attention ofParis Hilton and Jimmy Fallon. But the biggest reason CryptoPunks has lost its crown is down to its creator, Larva Labs.
Punk #7610, owned by Visa (Source: Larva Labs)
For those not aware, Larva Labs is a design studio formed by Matt Hall and John Watkinson. A pair of creatives who had previously worked on mobile apps and projects for companies like Android, they released the now iconic 10,000 pixel art Punk characters for free back in June 2017, long before anyone had to deal with whitelists or any other pre-mint shenanigans. Similar to other key crypto projects like Bitcoin and Yearn.Finance, the fair launch played into CryptoPunks’ wild success. It was also very early; by the timeThe New York TimesandTechCrunchwere writing about NFTs in 2021, CryptoPunks were already historical artefacts. Christie’s and Sotheby’s auctioned them, Jay-Z and Visa bought their own, and, well, we all know what happened to the floor prices after that.
But even as CryptoPunks cemented its place as a cultural gem, Larva Labs managed to tarnish its reputation on multiple occasions. Hall and Watkinson dropped an uninspiring project called Meebits at the May top and set a Dutch auction starting at 2.5 ETH—around $8,000 at the time—knowing that people who were priced out of Punks would buy into the hype (in fairness, Punk holders could mint a Meebit for free). Theymade $80 millionin a day. Nothing has happened with Meebits since then, and the collection has underperformed every notable NFT avatar project in price terms.
They also signed a Hollywood deal that would allow for their NFTs to be used in Hollywood movies. Though Punk holders applauded the move, it was a warning of what was to come: around the same time, the pair got more aggressive in issuing copyright takedown notices to the various Punk knock-offs that surfaced on Ethereum and other blockchains.
V1 Punk #6083 (Source: V1 Punks)
Most recently, Larva Labs has taken issue withV1 Punks, a set of algorithmically generated Punks that are almost indistinguishable from those in the main collection (unlike their more famous tokenized cousins, V1 Punks have a pink background). V1 Punks were born out of the original bugged CryptoPunks smart contract, and while Larva Labs scrapped them back in 2017, a community has since formed around them by wrapping them as ERC-721s and acknowledging their OG status.
Larva Labs doesn’t like how V1 Punks have grown in popularity as it apparently ruins the main collection’s prestige. As Cobiesummed upwell this week, while Hall and Watkinson usually take a back seat from any form of community building, they recently responded to the latest V1 Punks rally by dumping 210 ETH worth on the market and going all guns blazing on copyright charges. In a Discord post, Hall said he wants to stop V1 Punks from using the CryptoPunks name or artwork. Curiously, he then added that the 210 ETH would go to the Rainforest Foundation.
CryptoPunks command a floor of about 69 ETH today—obviously I wish I owned one. However, they’re far from the most valuable NFT avatar out there these days. That title goes to Bored Ape Yacht Club, the celebrity-endorsed collection that’s seen a meteoric rise by embracing Web3 values. The team behind the project, Yuga Labs, gave its holders copyright ownership and lucrative airdrops, partnered with global powerhouses like Adidas, and will soon issue a token. As I noted the week after Bored Ape Yacht Club launched, maybe Larva Labs could have learned something from them.
Don’t get me wrong: CryptoPunks will probably have huge historical significance, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the entry price for a Punk soar in the future. But that’s assuming its creator doesn’t completely kill the project’s legacy first.
Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this feature owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies. They also had exposure to YFI in a cryptocurrency index.
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The information on or accessed through this website is obtained from independent sources we believe to be accurate and reliable, but Decentral Media, Inc. makes no representation or warranty as to the timeliness, completeness, or accuracy of any information on or accessed through this website. Decentral Media, Inc. is not an investment advisor. We do not give personalized investment advice or other financial advice. The information on this website is subject to change without notice. Some or all of the information on this website may become outdated, or it may be or become incomplete or inaccurate. We may, but are not obligated to, update any outdated, incomplete, or inaccurate information.
You should never make an investment decision on an ICO, IEO, or other investment based on the information on this website, and you should never interpret or otherwise rely on any of the information on this website as investment advice. We strongly recommend that you consult a licensed investment advisor or other qualified financial professional if you are seeking investment advice on an ICO, IEO, or other investment. We do not accept compensation in any form for analyzing or reporting on any ICO, IEO, cryptocurrency, currency, tokenized sales, securities, or commodities.
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In a Discord post published on Wednesday, Matt Hall, the core developer at Larva Labs, the entity behind the popular CryptoPunks V2 and, initially, CryptoPunks V1 nonfungible tokens (NFT) collections, announced he would be “taking appropriate steps” in the following days regarding the alleged copyright infringement of “both the art and the CryptoPunks name” of the CryptoPunks V1 collection. Normally, this would amount to submitting a takedown notice under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, or DMCA, to the platform responsible for hosting the content for auction.
Matt Hall discussing CryptoPunks V1 vs. V2 | Source: Larva Labs official Discord
In 2017, Larva Labs created the CryptoPunks V1 NFT collection containing a fixed supply of 10,000 items. However, users soon discovered an underlying bug within the project’s smart contract that enabled the Punks’ buyers to withdraw their Ether (ETH) post-purchase, resulting in theft. Larva Labs quickly deemed the collection inauthentic and launched CryptoPunks V2, also with a fixed supply of 10,000 images. The move came only after the initial 10,000 CryptoPunks V1 collection sold out however, so there are a total of 20,000 CryptoPunks in existence, with the authenticity of 10,000 of them disputed. On top of that, Larva Labs cannot simply destroy the V1 project as Twitter user @0xStroudonian allegedly pointed out that both the V1 and V2 smart contracts are intertwined as they point to the same file.
The issue remained under the radar as OpenSea previously banned the sale of CryptoPunks V1, even though users wrapped them as ERC-721 tokens to fix the underlying exploit. However, the wrapped collection’s recent listing on LooksRare prompted OpenSea to rescind the ban. At the time of publication, the CryptoPunks V1 collection accumulated 12,069 ETH ($34.1 million) in total volume traded on OpenSea, while the CryptoPunks V2 collection accumulated 819,900 ETH ($2.22 billion) in total volume traded on the same platform.
Blockchain enthusiasts remain sharply divided over the authenticity issues of the V1 and V2 CryptoPunk collections. For example, Discord user Rufus Xavier#9449 wrote:
“Larva labs, you need to get your shit together. DMCA is not the way. Now you’re doing it to your collection after you traded it? You’re making the entire space look bad. Stop.”
Meanwhile, Discord user mb#1510 expressed a different point of view:
“I just don’t know if I can be ok with selling someone V2 knowing there is another token that might or might not have relevance to it.”
In copyright law, the existence of counterfeits and diluted products can significantly affect consumers’ confidence in the original brand and may cause them to drop in value. As the supply of CryptoPunks was suppose to be “fixed” at 10,000 items, adding another 10,000 into the collection by acknowledging their legitimacy leads to brand dilution, and could lead to a drop in the collection’s value. However, there is no legal precedent as to whether or not the spin-off, resurfacing, and re-commercialization of an NFT art collection due to a smart-contract bug constitutes an act of copyright infringement.
Larva Labs, the team behind the outrageously popular NFT project CryptoPunks, has penned a deal with Hollywood agents United Talent Agency (UTA).
According to an Aug. 31 article from the Hollywood Reporter, UTA will represent Larva Labs for intellectual property (IP) deals in TV, film, video games, licensing and publishing. Two other NFT projects from Larva Labs, Meebits and Autoglyphs, will also be represented by UTA.
CryptoPunks was launched back in 2017 and is one of the first NFT projects created on Ethereum. The IP-related deal with UTA marks a significant milestone for Larva Labs, as it is one of the first examples of content created in the blockchain sector that has entered the mainstream entertainment industry.
Lesley Silverman, head of UTA Digital Assets told the Hollywood Reporter:
“I would say that it is one of the first opportunities for an IP that fully originated in the crypto-world to enter a broader entertainment space, and they earned it.”
“They really have hit the zeitgeist in a tremendous way,” he added.
The CryptoPunks project maintained a relatively niche following for most of its short history, before exploding in popularity this year amid a growing wave of interest in the NFT sector which saw $2.5 billion worth of sales in the first six months of this year.
According to data from the CryptoPunks website, the Larva Labs OG NFTs have generated a whopping $1.18 billion worth of total sales since 2017, with $304.8 million worth of sales in the past seven days alone. The cheapest CryptoPunk on sale is currently priced at 115 Ethereum (ETH) worth around $391,000 at the time of publication.
Related: CryptoPunks clone PolygonPunks booted from OpenSea marketplace
Public figures such as rapper Jay Z, electronic dance musician Steve Aoki and entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk all reportedly own CryptoPunks. Cointelegraph reported on Aug. 23 that payments tech giant Visa purchased CryptoPunk 7610 — a female figure with a mohawk, clown green eyes and lipstick — for 49.50 ETH worth $150,000 at the time of purchase.
The Cryptopunks have done ~$140M worth of transactions in the past 24 hours, and have now passed $1B in lifetime transaction volume. pic.twitter.com/SCBY6F22Ho
— Larva Labs (@larvalabs) August 28, 2021
There are 10,000 CryptoPunks NFTs in total, all of which were computer-generated from a set of unique features to create the individual pixel art avatars. They were initially claimed for free, with TechCrunch reporting in April this year that a collector who goes by the name “mr703” online snatched 703 Punks at initial launch — keeping hundreds of the NFTs in a collection now worth tens of millions at current prices.
With a Punk now being a VISA mascot we are living through the end of an era: a fringe art experiment is turning into a corporate marketing tool. Happy, as it will propel #cryptopunks valuation through the roof.
— mr703 (@mr703_punks) August 27, 2021
Larva Labs’ other NFT projects also follow the computer-generated route of CryptoPunks. The Meebits NFTs were launched this May, and consist of 20,000 unique 3D voxel characters that are built for use in the Metaverse and NFT gaming.
Autoglyphs launched in 2019 and is a generated art project that is limited to 512 NFTs, where users generate a “Glyph” by donating a creation fee of 0.20 ETH ($687) to the chosen charity of Larva Labs, 350.org — an organization aimed at combating climate change.
The non-fungible token (NFT) project CryptoPunks is seeing a massive surge in trading volume over the last seven days.
DappRadar, which tracks and analyzes decentralized apps, shows that the punk-movement-inspired crypto project hit over $120 million in trading volume for a 1,270% surge over the last seven days.
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CryptoPunks, one of the first NFT projects on Ethereum (ETH), is a collection of 10,000 24×24, 8-bit-style pixel art images of male and female characters inspired by the London punk movement of the 1970s. Each CryptoPunk is unique, but some have rarer features than others.
After launching the project in 2017, Larva Labs, the creator of the project, initially offered the CryptoPunks for free to anyone with an Ethereum wallet.
According to Larva Labs, the total value of all CryptoPunk sales stands at 263,180 ETH, worth about $670.29 million.
The CryptoPunk mania began on Friday as one unknown Ethereum whale initiated a buying spree of the digital characters. A look at the whale’s Ethereum wallet shows that the entity spent between 24 ETH to 29 ETH to purchase a single CryptoPunk. Larva Labs shows that the deep-pocketed investor now owns 104 CryptoPunks.
Friday also saw some of the biggest individual sales for the project, with CryptoPunk#5217 fetching 2,250 ETH, or roughly $5.45 million and CryptoPunk#2140 selling for 1,600 ETH, worth about $3.76 million. The sales are respectively the third and fourth largest in CryptoPunks history.
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Nine CryptoPunks, including a rare Alien Punk, went on sale at Christie’s on Monday, fetching $16.9 million for the lot.
Miniature physical versions of the Punks were hidden around the Christie’s gallery ahead of the auction, leading many NFT fans to criticize the gallery’s non-prominent display.
The sale, conducted in fiat, was overshadowed by a Basquiat piece that sold for $93.1 million alongside other notable works.
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Nine rare CryptoPunks sold for $16.9 million at Christie’s on Monday as part of the art brokers’s latest auction event.
Rare CryptoPunks Fetch Eight Figures
The series of nine CryptoPunks sold for $16,962,500 via Christie’s. The iconic NFTs, created by Larva Labs in 2017, were included in the auction house’s 21st Century Evening Sale on May 10.
#AuctionUpdate 9 rare CryptoPunks from Larva Labs’ own collection makes history realizing $16,962,500 pic.twitter.com/qsPs5nqVYY
— Christie’s (@ChristiesInc) May 12, 2021
The CryptoPunks NFTs were originally released for free in 2017 in a quantity of 10,000 and have become a pillar of Ethereum’s early NFT history. Each piece features a distinctive 24×24 pixel art design with the accompanying data stored on the blockchain.
At the time of writing, the floor price for a Punk is 16.5 ETH, which comes to just over $70,000 at current Ethereum prices.
CryptoPunks have become much more sought after in recent months as NFTs have become mainstream. Christie’s announced the CryptoPunks sale weeks after selling an NFT by Beeple for $69.34 million, which may have helped generate interest in the sale.
Critics Slam Christie’s Auction
The estimated sale price of the nine CryptoPunks NFTs was initially placed between $7 and 9 million. Though the final sale amount doubled that estimate, the structure of the sale has drawn criticism.
Many of the complaints leveled against Christie’s have focused on the way the NFTs were presented in the lead-up to the sale. Christie’s has a gallery at its New York location, where paintings can be viewed in the lead-up to a sale.However, in this case, Christie’s opted to hide miniature images around the gallery.
“A 15% commission for this? Would’ve been better off selling it online with a 2.5% commission if you’re only going to sell it to a crypto buyer,” one investor wrote on Twitter.
Via gmoney.eth on Twitter
Christies was also criticized for only allowing buyers to pay in fiat currency, not cryptocurrency, despite the fact that it accepted crypto during its earlier Beeple NFT sale.
Finally, the CryptoPunks NFTs were overshadowed by other auction items including original works by Banksy, Damien Hirst, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Basquiat’s “In This Case” sold for $93.1 million.
With the likes of Larva Labs and Beeple finding their way into the mainstream this year, some NFT believers have described the movement as the beginning of the digital art epoch. Still, based on Monday’s sale, it may be some time before the traditional art world is ready to truly embrace the technology.
Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this feature owned ETH, FLI, and several other cryptocurrencies.
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The information on or accessed through this website is obtained from independent sources we believe to be accurate and reliable, but Decentral Media, Inc. makes no representation or warranty as to the timeliness, completeness, or accuracy of any information on or accessed through this website. Decentral Media, Inc. is not an investment advisor. We do not give personalized investment advice or other financial advice. The information on this website is subject to change without notice. Some or all of the information on this website may become outdated, or it may be or become incomplete or inaccurate. We may, but are not obligated to, update any outdated, incomplete, or inaccurate information.
You should never make an investment decision on an ICO, IEO, or other investment based on the information on this website, and you should never interpret or otherwise rely on any of the information on this website as investment advice. We strongly recommend that you consult a licensed investment advisor or other qualified financial professional if you are seeking investment advice on an ICO, IEO, or other investment. We do not accept compensation in any form for analyzing or reporting on any ICO, IEO, cryptocurrency, currency, tokenized sales, securities, or commodities.
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Legendary NFT developers Larva Labs were the victims of an exploit this morning, as an attacker found a way to mint a rare NFT worth over $700,000 from the “Meebits” collection.
The attacker, 0xNietzsche, teased the exploit on Twitter this morning, saying he anticipated making “$300,000 per hour” throughout the duration of the attack. He has since deleted the Tweets, saying that they came off as “douchey.”
Definitely sent out some regrettable tweets in the last few hours. After coming down & processing it all they do sound VERY douchey.
— 0xNietzsche (@0xNietzsche) May 8, 2021
His attack essentially centered on “rerolling” his Meebit mints until the contract gave him one he wanted. The Meebits contract includes a zipped Interplanetary File System file, one which reveals the characteristics of each Meebit’s ID. The IDs of the remaining Meebits are public knowledge, but until knowledge of the IPFS leak spread, their characteristics were not. As a result, 0xNietzsche simply needed to make a list of desirable IDs, and design a contract that minted Meebits over and over, but cancelled the transaction if he didn’t get a favorable ID.
An Etherscan address shows 345 total transactions, hundreds of which are failed “rolls” to obtain desirable Meebits. The only successful roll appears to be for Meebit 16647, a “visitor” or alien. 16647 was bought by the collector-whale Pranksy for 200 ETH. Per Opensea, the next lowest-price Visitor Meebit is listed for 300 ETH.
Step 1) Get tagged in @larvalabs @discord.
Step 2) See Visitor #Meebit for 200 ETH ($700K) on @opensea.
Step 3) Buy #Meebit
Step 4) Hear about mint exploit, exploit closed by @larvalabs.
In a pinned post in their Discord, Larva Labs announced that they have since shut down the marketplace.
“We have temporarily paused community minting and trading in the Meebits contract. The contract is safe, all Meebits are safe, and trading is working just fine,” the announcement reads in part.
While the Meebits minting period was scheduled to conclude on Monday, some CryptoPunk and Authglyphs owners (each of whom are entitled to a Meebit on a one-to-one basis) may not have redeemed theirs yet. As a result, the Larva Labs team plans to “provide a form where you can use your wallet to sign a message that proves ownership of your punks/glyphs, and we’ll mint the Meebits for you using the ‘devMint’ function,” allowing users to continue to mint through the weekend while preventing others from utilizing the exploit.
By 0xNietzsche’s own estimations, his exploit could have been far more successful. Per posts in the Discord, given the length of the attack before the market shutdown he felt he “should’ve gotten two meebs in that time.” He also noted that his contract cost “~$20k an hour in gas fees” and that he had to purchase punks with unredeemed Meebits in order for the exploit to work, meaning his total haul was reduced due to associated costs:
In a now-deleted Tweet, he said he raked in “50 ETH and 5 floor punks” from the exploit.
An anonymous source told Cointelegraph that other NFT collectors were aware of the attack vector, but did not choose to exploit it as they felt it would be “unethical.” Tweets from yesterday indicate that others were indeed aware of the IPFS leak and had identified the rarest remaining Meebit, 10761, a “dissected,” which was among 0xNietzsche’s targets.
One more Dissected Meebit is “missing”, out there to be minted still.
The community is currently publicly debating what this will mean for prices across the Meebits and wider Larva Labs space. Many believe that the exploit could, paradoxically, increase floor prices for the projects due to “narrative.”
Historical significance can play a major role in the price of NFTs. Earlier this year, digital archeologists uncovered “Mooncats,” thought by many to be the second-ever NFT project, leading to a temporary buying frenzy. 0xNietzsche himself is a Mooncats enthusiast.
Larva Labs, the creators of the iconic CryptoPunks and Autoglyphs NFT collections, unveiled a new metaverse-focussed series called Meebits yesterday.
Punk and Glyph owners could mint their own Meebits for free, while a public release of 9,000 NFTs sold out within a few hours.
Initially priced at 2.5 ETH, the series has been divisive. Some have since sold for six-figure sums on the secondary market.
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Larva Labs, the creatives behind the beloved CryptoPunks and Autoglyphs NFTs, have launched a new collection. Meebits caused a storm yesterday, but some raised eyebrows at the entry price.
Larva Labs Unveil Meebits
“Meebits” is a series of 20,000 distinctive 3D avatars designed to be used in the metaverse. In a blog piece announcing the collection, Larva Labs wrote that they “hope that the Meebits will be the 3D avatar for virtual worlds, games, and VR.”
In some ways, the collection closely resembles that of CryptoPunks. Each Meebits character comes with different attributes that denote a level of scarcity. Skeletons, visitors, and robots, for example, are much more scarce than humans.
The collection initially went live with a community grant that allowed Punk and Autoglyphs owners to mint their own Meebits for free. One character could be minted per Punk or Glyph, which allowed those with multiple Larva Labs pieces to take a significant supply of the Meebits collection. The community minting period is live for one week.
Shortly after the community grant started, a public sale of 9,000 Meebits went live in a Dutch auction format.
They were initially priced at 2.5 ETH—about $8,400 at today’s prices. The price of the NFTs then fell as time went on, though most of the pieces were quickly snapped up. Within six hours of going live, the public release was sold out. This meant that one Meebit was priced above 2.4 ETH at sellout time.
According todata from Dune Analytics, Larva Labs made a staggering $79,947,566 million from the public sale.
Meebits Sale Proves Divisive
Although the Dutch auction format was used to establish the fair market value of the series, many crypto followers took shots at the initial price tag.
Some pointed to the recent LazyApes sale that went live last week and became the talk of the NFT community over the weekend. They were priced at a much more affordable 0.08 ETH, but the creators don’t have the same prestige that Larva Labs do.
Larvalabs royally fucked up the meebits sale.
20,000 meebits & they want 2.5 eth ($8000) each for the 9000 they’re selling.
Targeting $72M net on the public sale.
High price with no scarcity, no historic value like punks.
Comes off like a straight cash grab. Hard pass from me
— davis 🐺🦊 (@basedkarbon) May 3, 2021
Moreover, by generously rewarding early Larva Labs supporters, the community grant effectively enriched those who have already benefited from Larva Labs (Punks and Glyphs fetch eye-watering sums on the secondary market these days). While such airdrops are often looked on favorably in the NFT and DeFi space, they rarely allow users to hoard multiple pieces in a rare series.
The community minting period runs into next week, which means that some new pieces may start appearing on the secondary market over the next few days. Several of the more common human Meebits are already listed on OpenSea with a floor price below 2.4 ETH.
However, as expected, the rarer characters in the series have quickly commanded high price valuations. Yesterday, a visitor, which loosely resembles the sought-after aliens in the CryptoPunks series,sold for303 ETH.Meanwhile, a robot and skeleton sold for110 ETHand99 ETHrespectively.
A dissected character, thought to be among the most scarce in the collection, has received multiple million-dollar offers. It’scurrently listedfor 2,888 ETH.
Amid the conversation on Crypto Twitter, Larva Labs shared a note expressing their thanks to the community. “What an amazing day, thank you everybody!” they wrote.
😶😶 The Meebits are sold out! 😶😶 The Community Grant will remain open for the rest of the week, so still plenty of time for punk/glyph owners to claim theirs. What an amazing day, thank you everybody! 😶
— Larva Labs (@larvalabs) May 3, 2021
The Meebits launch isn’t the only thing Larva Labs is working on this month: on May 11, nine CryptoPunks will go on sale at Christie’s, the auction house that sold Beeple’s magnum opus NFT for $69.34 million in March. The set is estimated to fetch $7-9 million.
Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this feature owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.
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The information on or accessed through this website is obtained from independent sources we believe to be accurate and reliable, but Decentral Media, Inc. makes no representation or warranty as to the timeliness, completeness, or accuracy of any information on or accessed through this website. Decentral Media, Inc. is not an investment advisor. We do not give personalized investment advice or other financial advice. The information on this website is subject to change without notice. Some or all of the information on this website may become outdated, or it may be or become incomplete or inaccurate. We may, but are not obligated to, update any outdated, incomplete, or inaccurate information.
You should never make an investment decision on an ICO, IEO, or other investment based on the information on this website, and you should never interpret or otherwise rely on any of the information on this website as investment advice. We strongly recommend that you consult a licensed investment advisor or other qualified financial professional if you are seeking investment advice on an ICO, IEO, or other investment. We do not accept compensation in any form for analyzing or reporting on any ICO, IEO, cryptocurrency, currency, tokenized sales, securities, or commodities.
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A single buyer now owns 34 limited-edition CryptoPunks after splashing 557.5 ETH (or $1 million), Larva Labs details show.
The $1 Million Purchase
Larva Labs has subsequently confirmed that the anonymous buyer has active bids for three more CryptoPunks NFTs.
As expected, the trading volumes of Larva Labs’ CryptoPunks NFTs has shot, reaching over $15 million, only trailing top-selling NBA Top Shots.
Nonetheless, CryptoPunks currently dominate the NFT purchase leader board in the top 20. Except for the NBA Top Shot’s Lebron James piece, the rest are creations by Larva Labs.
The CryptoPunks have now done over $15M of volume in the past 24 hours. Of the top 16 individual sales, all but one are punks. Some guy named LeBron ruined the sweep. pic.twitter.com/loRZxcubq6
— Larva Labs (@larvalabs) February 22, 2021
10k CryptoPunks were Originally Free
As a primer, Larva Labs initially created 10k crypto-collectibles called Crypto Punks in compliance with Ethereum’s ERC-721 standard for minting Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).
They are algorithmically generated 24×24 pixel art images of “punky-looking” boys and girls. The rare ones are pixelated images of apes, aliens, or zombies.
Although unique, each collectible is “almost” an ERC-20 token bearing distinctive features. Therefore, users can track its contract and determine the amount he/she owns.
Earlier, CryptoPunks could be claimed for free by anyone with an Ethereum address. However–as expected, and considering that each was a limited-edition piece with Ethereum provenance, all of them were quickly snapped by NFT fans.
With the growing popularity of NFTs, each piece must now be bought.
The Cheapest CryptoPunk Goes for Roughly $40k
Overly, out of the 10k CryptoPunks, 6,106 have been sold for a ballpark of $16,459 or 8.87 ETHs within the last year.
CryptoPunks sales have so far generated roughly $100 million (or 54.17k ETH) in sales. The value, however, could be higher (or lower) depending on the spot rates of ETH prices.
Interestingly, as the fever picks up, the last few bids of CryptoPunks available for sale average $45k.
According to Larva Labs, the lowest bid price for available CryptoPunks stand at 21.5 ETH ($39,885.51). In case there is a rush to buy more, the valuation of each piece will, most likely, spiral to new levels pushing the NFTs marketplace to new levels.
As BTCManager reports, 2021 is shaping up to be the year of NFTs. Trading volumes in 2020 rose 3X to over$250 million.
An unknown buyer on Larva Labs sprung into action yesterday evening to purchase 19 CryptoPunks NFTs. They spent $897,000 in less than two hours.
CryptoPunks Market Booming
A mystery buyer spent over 491 ETH on CryptoPunks last night.
The buyer’s account was inactive until last night, when they acquired 19 of Larva Labs digital collectibles. Their purchases included Punk 2484, one of 88 rare zombie punks. That one set them back $311,000.
Source: LarvaLabs
CryptoPunks was launched by Larva Labs in 2017 and quickly found a cult following among ardent Ethereum users. Today they’re arguably the most sought after NFTs on Ethereum and have recently fetched huge sums of money. Last month, one punk sold for 605 ETH, $761,888.57 at the time.
Punk 2890 bought for 605 ETH ($761,888.57 USD) by 0x24c5eb from 0x6611fe. https://t.co/p5IvIq3MnB #cryptopunks #ethereum pic.twitter.com/xq8Cl2imKV
— CryptoPunks Bot (@cryptopunksbot) January 23, 2021
Each punk comes in the form of a 24×24 pixel art and associated ERC-721 token, and there are only 10,000 in existence. They were given away for free on launch.
It’s unclear whether the whale account behind the $900,000 spree belongs to a group or an individual. Still, the high valuations on NFTs that were originally available for free are an indication of a booming market.
Twitter user gmoneyNFT pointed out the series of sales earlier today, speculating on whether the buyer could be one of the high-net-worth individuals who had recently commented on the NFT market, such as Mark Cuban.
Speaking to Crypto Briefing, gmoneyNFT said:
“I would guess they’re holding for now. I think everyone has a price that they would sell something for. But I’m sure for them, they will be holding for a long time.”
The NFT market has made leaps and bounds in recent months, with record-breaking sales and leading auction house Christie’s now pioneering the world’s first mainstream auction of digital art.
Disclosure: The author held Bitcoin at the time of writing.
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The information on or accessed through this website is obtained from independent sources we believe to be accurate and reliable, but Decentral Media, Inc. makes no representation or warranty as to the timeliness, completeness, or accuracy of any information on or accessed through this website. Decentral Media, Inc. is not an investment advisor. We do not give personalized investment advice or other financial advice. The information on this website is subject to change without notice. Some or all of the information on this website may become outdated, or it may be or become incomplete or inaccurate. We may, but are not obligated to, update any outdated, incomplete, or inaccurate information.
You should never make an investment decision on an ICO, IEO, or other investment based on the information on this website, and you should never interpret or otherwise rely on any of the information on this website as investment advice. We strongly recommend that you consult a licensed investment advisor or other qualified financial professional if you are seeking investment advice on an ICO, IEO, or other investment. We do not accept compensation in any form for analyzing or reporting on any ICO, IEO, cryptocurrency, currency, tokenized sales, securities, or commodities.
See full terms and conditions.
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