Earlier today, the owner of the non-fungible token CryptoPunks #6046 decreased a quote of $9.5 million dollars in Ethereum (ETH), which would have been the greatest on-chain NFT deal to date. The bidder, who goes by an ENS of poap.eth, placed the record-setting bid after the CryptoPunks owner tweeted: “My punk is not for sale. Don’t care what anyone offers me.”
CryptoPunks is an NFT collection of 10,000 arbitrarily produced images produced by Larva Labs, and is extensively promoted and acknowledged as the #1 collection throughout the whole NFT area.
The project is an all-time leader in total transaction volume at 552,073 ETH, or approximately $2.1 billion. Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), which is the next biggest collection on OpenSea, has actually tape-recorded 1/5th of CryptoPunk’s all-time sales volume. According to data from Larva Labs, the most expensive transaction to date was $7.57M for Punk #7804 back on March 11, 2021.
If the quote made by poap.eth were to have actually been accepted, CryptoPunk #6046 would have ended up being perhaps the most important CryptoPunk by more than 500 ETH. Interestingly enough however, the owner himself admitted that the “value” of his NFT was nowhere near the ballpark of $9.5M: [#]6046 is probably not worth 2500 ETH, it’s a mid tier punk due to its defining 3D glasses traits. So why would someone offer 2500 ETH on it?”
How Exactly are CryptoPunks Valued?
Within NFT collections, the worth of a private piece is typically identified by the rarity of its qualities and attributes. This is the case for CryptoPunks, with extremely rare traits like Aliens (0.09%) fetching a far greater price than ones with more common traits. In the case of Punk #6046, its characteristic of 3D glasses (3%) would deserve substantially less than exceptionally uncommon qualities.
The average price of a CryptoPunk has skyrocketed over the past year, with data from DuneAnalytics showing a 1300% increase in average sales price since the beginning of the year. Despite these meteoric boosts in rate, the NFT area is still in relative infancy.
Coinbase, which recently announced its plans to release an NFT marketplace, saw over 1.5 million sign ups – a number trumping OpenSea’s user base by several fold. According to dappRadar, OpenSea has an overall user base count of 263 thousand. With Coinbase entering the NFT space, there’s little to no doubt that the industry will continue to grow exponentially.
Interestingly enough, @richerd described the thinking behind turning down the offer. He implied that his brand and online persona was largely connected to his CryptoPunk, and selling it would effectively sever this bond. “My identity, along with [the] identity of other iconic Punks, have value beyond the NFT itself. We have our own brands similar to any other brand and that has value. Because I value my personal brand and identity, this was an easy rejection for me.”
