Sotheby’s will auction 104 CryptoPunks with a chance to raise $30 million
2 min readAuction house Sotheby’s announced on Tuesday that it will auction 104 NFTs from the popular CryptoPunks collection, with the potential to raise up to $30 million from sales.
The event is being called “Punk It!” and will be performed live in New York City on February 23. The initiative is part of “Sotheby’s Metaverse,” a series of NFT sales that began in October 2021.
The non-fungible tokens to be auctioned as a single lot were acquired by anonymous collector “0x650d” in July 2021. The collection of 104 units represents about 1% of CryptoPunks’ total supply, which contains 10,000 tokens.
Although the original buyer purchased the collection in an ETH transaction, Sotheby’s will likely allow the bidder to pay with cash or cryptocurrency, as in previous NFT auctions.
The tokens will be displayed in an exhibition that will feature a VIP dinner and a DJ party.
About the CryptoPunks Collection
CryptoPunks NFTs are a collection of 10,000 NFTs released in 2017 by Larva Labs. Each unique collectible consists of a pixelated portrait of a punk rock looking face and sports various traits and accessories such as bandanas, cigarettes or mohawks.
CryptoPunks has become one of the most successful NFT collections. The items currently have a minimum price of 67.5 ETH, or approximately $207,000.
Since launch, CryptoPunks have generated around 683,000 ETH in sales volume. That is, more than US$ 2 billion at the current price.
Celebrities like Jay-Z and Jason Derulo have adopted CryptoPunks as profile pictures on their social media accounts.
“CryptoPunks are the original PFP series that created the template for other NFT projects that followed and that helped propel NFTs onto the global stage as one of the most recognizable visual styles that have become synonymous with the digital art movement,” said Michael Bouhanna, co-head of digital art at Sotheby’s, in a statement.
In June 2021, Sotheby’s sold CryptoPunk #7523 – a rare alien – for $11.8 million.
Meanwhile, its competitor, auction house Christie’s, also sold CryptoPunks on several occasions in the past year. In May 2021, for example, it sold a collection of nine CryptoPunks for $17 million.
