A sample of Punks from the CryptoPunks project will be auctioned at Christie’s in May.
Some say that the CryptoPunks project marked the beginning of the CryptoArt movement. Whether CryptoPunks was definitively the first nonfungible token (NFT) project on Ethereum is unclear. However, the project is the one remembered as such. It was started three years ago by software developers Matt Hall and John Watkinson at New York-based Larva Labs. The developers’ software generated 10,000 Punks – strange looking pixel characters with distinct features – that could be traded on the CryptoPunks NFT platform.
The breakthrough aspect of CryptoPunks is how it challenged the concept of owning digital art. In 2017, there were already digital artists with a significant following, including Beeple, who started his 5000-day project in 2013. However, Larva Labs went a step further and launched the collectibles as tradable NFTs.
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