In 2017, Larva Labs created CryptoPunks — 10,000 pixelated portraits ofpeople, aliens, apes and zombies minted as NFTs. At the launch, theygave 9,000 away for free, while the business retained 1,000. It wasone of the internet’s first ever NFT projects and set CryptoPunks onthe road to becoming at one point the most successful crypto-artproject ever made.
Larva Labs was created in New York by Matt Hall and John Watkinson.Together, they coded a piece of software that would randomly generate10,000 portraits from a predetermined set of assets. By design, someassets would appear less frequently than others, making certainCryptoPunks rarer. For example, 317 CryptoPunks smoke a pipe, 286 wear3-D glasses and 128 have rosy cheeks.
‘The core of the idea was that every character should be unique,’ LarvaLabs have said. ‘The advantage of generative art is that the process,once set in motion, can produce results that are even surprising tous.’
The punk design of the portraits was intended to reflect theanti-establishment spirit of the crypto movement. Their initial launchwas an experiment to see how the public would react to the idea ofcollecting digital art.
Four years later, in February 2021, CryptoPunk 6965, whichdepicts an ape in a fedora, sold for the equivalent price of $1.5million. The following month, CryptoPunk 7804, an aliensmoking a pipe, sold for the equivalent price of $7.5 million.Afterwards, the work’s new owner declared it was the ‘digital MonaLisa.’
A number of celebrities also own CryptoPunks, including rappers Jay-Zand Snoop Dogg and tennis legend Serena Williams.
In May 2021, Hall and Watkinsonconsigned a set of nine rare CryptoPunks to Christie’s. Offered as a single lot in an evening sale of 21stcentury art, they sold for $16.9 million, more than double their lowestimate.
At the time, that was the second most expensive NFT purchase after therecord-breaking $69 million sale of a set ofBeeple NFTs at Christie’s two months earlier.
The following February, the record price for a CryptoPunk was smashedwhen CryptoPunk 5822, one of just nine blue aliens, sold for $23.9million.
