CryptoPunks are 10,000 pixel-art characters on Ethereum. Larva Labs (Matt Hall and John Watkinson) released them for free in June 2017. They are one of the earliest NFT collections. The intellectual property now belongs to the Infinite Node Foundation (NODE), a nonprofit that bought it from Yuga Labs in May 2025. The latest development came on 24 October 2026. TokenPost reported that NODE accepted Punk Strategy, an independent token project that buys and resells Punks, as a donation and took over its management. NODE's first change was to cut the fee on trades of that token from 10% to 5%. Only one outlet has reported this so far.
What has happened recently
- 24 October 2026: NODE takes over Punk Strategy. TokenWorks launched Punk Strategy in September 2025. Trading in its token pays for CryptoPunk purchases. The Punks are then listed for resale, and the proceeds buy back and burn the token. An independent team built it, with no prior ties to NODE or Larva Labs. Source: TokenPost only.
- 19 May 2026: the original 2017 contract trades again. Larva Labs' first contract (June 2017) had a marketplace bug: a buyer could receive a Punk and also reclaim the ETH they had paid. Larva Labs then deployed a V2 contract with the same images and token IDs and a patched marketplace. V2 is the set most people mean by "CryptoPunks". Bankless reported that a new tool, CryptoPunksMarket, now settles V1 trades directly through the original contract without a wrapper. At the time of writing, Bankless put the V2 floor at about 33 ETH and the V1 floor at about 2.4 ETH.
- 21 December 2025: MoMA adds eight Punks. The Museum of Modern Art added eight CryptoPunks (#74, #2786, #3407, #4018, #5160, #5616, #7178, #7899) to its permanent collection, together with eight Chromie Squiggles. All were donated. Hall and Watkinson gave #74 and #5160. The works are held in MoMA's Media and Performance department.
- 13 May 2025: Yuga Labs sells the IP to NODE. Financial terms were not disclosed. NODE says it will focus on preservation, community and expansion. Its advisory board includes Yuga CEO Wylie Aronow, Art Blocks founder Erick Calderon, and Hall and Watkinson. Its first project was an exhibition of the full collection at its Palo Alto space.
The basics
Supply and types
There are exactly 10,000 Punks, and the contract cannot create more. Each one is a small pixel portrait generated by an algorithm from a set of attributes. Base types, by count:
| Type | Count |
|---|---|
| Male | 6,039 |
| Female | 3,840 |
| Zombie | 88 |
| Ape | 24 |
| Alien | 9 |
On top of the base type, each Punk has a set of accessories. The rarity of that combination also affects price. Statistical rarity and market demand are different things: buyers also pay for look and history.
How they were released
Anyone with an Ethereum wallet could claim a Punk for free and pay only the gas fee. The common account, repeated in the collection's description on a major NFT marketplace, is that 9,000 were open to claim and Larva Labs kept 1,000. Christie's confirms that Larva Labs kept some Punks: in May 2021 it sold nine "from Larva Labs' own collection".
Not an ERC-721 token
CryptoPunks came before ERC-721, the standard most NFTs use today. The EIP-721 text (created 24 January 2018) describes CryptoPunks as "partially ERC-20 compatible, but not easily generalizable because it includes auction functionality". The marketplace is built into the contract itself, which is why many apps work with "wrapped" Punks instead. A wrapped Punk is an ERC-721 token backed 1:1 by an original Punk. Whoever holds the wrapper can redeem the original.
Images on-chain
In 2017 the contract stored only a cryptographic hash of one composite image of all 10,000 Punks. On 18 August 2021, Larva Labs put the image and attribute data itself on Ethereum. The deployment cost over 73 million gas. Anyone can read a Punk's image as raw pixels or SVG through free view functions. Many NFT collections store images off-chain, so their pictures depend on outside hosting. CryptoPunks images do not.
Key ownership dates
- June 2017: Larva Labs launches CryptoPunks on Ethereum.
- 11 March 2022: Yuga Labs announces it has bought the CryptoPunks and Meebits IP (brands and art copyright) from Larva Labs, along with 423 CryptoPunks and 1,711 Meebits. It promises holders the same commercial rights that BAYC holders already had.
- 7 May 2022: The transfer completes, and the official marketplace moves to a Yuga-owned site.
- 13 May 2025: NODE acquires the IP from Yuga Labs.
Is the Punk in that listing an original?
Answer three questions about a listing to see which of the article's checks it passes, or where it falls short.
Which contract holds the token in the listing?
- 0xb47e3cd837dDF8e4c57F05d70Ab865de6e193BBB, shown on Etherscan as "CryptoPunksMarket" → next question
- The wrapper contract 0xb7F7F6C52F2e2fdb1963Eab30438024864c313F6 → A wrapped Punk
- The first Larva Labs contract from June 2017 (V1) → A V1 Punk, not V2
- Some other contract → Not an original Punk
You read the Punk's sale history on a block explorer. What do the big past sales look like?
- Normal transfers and sales → next question
- Some look like wash trades or flash-loan self-purchases → Don't trust the headline sale figures
How did you get to the marketplace page where you would connect your wallet?
- I typed the marketplace URL myself → Passes the article's checks
- I followed a link from a direct message, Discord, Telegram or email → Stop and open the site yourself
The token sits on the original contract, its sale history is public and readable, and you reached the site yourself. On-chain bids, purchases and transfers still cost gas on top of the price.
This is an ERC-721 token backed 1:1 by an original Punk, not the original itself. Whoever holds the wrapper can redeem the original Punk.
V1 shares images and token IDs with V2, but V2 is the set most people mean by "CryptoPunks". The two trade at very different prices: Bankless put the floor at about 2.4 ETH for V1 and about 33 ETH for V2 in May 2026.
Any token from a contract other than the original is not an original Punk, however close the picture looks.
Some big sales are not real market prices. In October 2021, #9998 "sold" for 124,457 ETH, but Larva Labs called it a flash-loan self-purchase and left it out of the collection's statistics.
Don't connect a wallet through links in messages. Phishing sites copy real interfaces closely, so type the marketplace URL yourself.
This walks through the article's checks only. It cannot read the blockchain, confirm a particular token or listing, or say what a Punk is worth, and the May 2026 floor figures are dated snapshots, not current quotes.
Record sales, with dates
| Punk | Type | Price | Date | Where |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #5822 | Alien | 8,000 ETH (about $23.7M) | 12 Feb 2022 | Official marketplace |
| #3100 | Alien | 4,500 ETH (about $16M) | 3–4 Mar 2024 | Official marketplace |
| #7804 | Alien | 4,850 ETH (about $16.4M) | 20 Mar 2024 | Official marketplace |
| #7523 | Alien | $11.75M | 10 Jun 2021 | Sotheby's |
| Nine Punks (one lot) | Mixed | $16,962,500 | May 2021 | Christie's |
| #7804 | Alien | 4,200 ETH (about $7.5M) | 10 Mar 2021 | Official marketplace |
Dollar values are at the time of sale. The buyer of #5822, Chain CEO Deepak Thapliyal, said he paid with borrowed funds. Some headline figures are misleading. In October 2021, #9998 "sold" for 124,457 ETH, but Larva Labs said it was a flash-loan self-purchase and left it out of the collection's statistics. In February 2022, a Sotheby's auction of 104 Punks was withdrawn 23 minutes after it began, at the seller's request.
Celebrity interest helped drive the 2021 run. In June 2021, Jay-Z made Punk #6095 his Twitter profile picture; reports said he bought it for 55 ETH.
How to check that a Punk is real
- Check the contract address. Original Punks live at
0xb47e3cd837dDF8e4c57F05d70Ab865de6e193BBB. Etherscan shows this contract as "CryptoPunksMarket", with verified source code. Any token from a different contract is not an original Punk, however close the picture looks. Wrapped Punks use their own wrapper contract,0xb7F7F6C52F2e2fdb1963Eab30438024864c313F6. - Know whether it is V1 or V2. Both share images and IDs but trade at very different prices (about 2.4 ETH vs about 33 ETH for the floor in May 2026, per Bankless). Confirm which contract a listing uses.
- Read the sale history on-chain. Every transfer and sale is public on a block explorer. Check what the Punk sold for before and whether any big sales were wash or flash-loan trades.
- Type the marketplace URL yourself. Don't connect a wallet through links from direct messages, Discord, Telegram or email. Phishing sites copy real interfaces closely.
- Budget for gas. On-chain bids, purchases and transfers cost gas on top of the price.
Limitations
The Punk Strategy handover rests on one outlet (TokenPost). Floor prices change daily, and the figures here are dated snapshots, not current quotes.
NFTs are volatile and illiquid, and past sale prices say nothing about future value. This article is information, not investment advice.
