Sotheby’s To Sell Off 104-Piece CryptoPunk NFT Collection Worth As Much As $30M

Despite facing a lawsuit about the sale of the world’s first non-fungible token (NFT), Sotheby’s is going ahead with another auction of digital assets. 

This time, the auction house will be holding a single-lot sale for 104 CryptoPunks, which is believed to be worth between US$20 million to US$30 million, making it the highest asking price yet for an NFT going under the hammer.

For the unfamiliar, CrytoPunks were released by Larva Labs in 2017, and has become one of the highest-costing virtual assets. Each of the 10,000 images is made from a unique mix of eight different characters, assigned by an algorithm.

The lot, which will be sold as a single unit, was acquired by an anonymous collector known as 0x650d. With 104 images in the collection, it is undoubtedly one of the largest CryptoPunks capsules worldwide, comprising more than 1% of all of the icons available. 

Since its inception, the Punks have generated a whopping US$2 billion, or 683,000 ETH in sales, as per CoinDesk. 

According to Artnet News, Sotheby’s will accept payment in cryptocurrencies Ether, Bitcoin, USD Coin, or fiat currencies. Bids will be announced in real-time Ether value at the sale itself, alongside the usual US dollars. 

If you’re interested in CryptoPunks or just want to understand NFTs better, the auction house will also be hosting a live discussion on the topic before the sale, explaining the nature of digital assets and why this particular collection rose up the ranks. 

“CryptoPunks are the original PFP [profile pic] series that created the template for other NFT projects that have followed,” said Michael Bouhanna, Sotheby’s Co-Head of Digital Art. 

[via Artnet News and CoinDesk, images via Sotheby’s]