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Single Buyer Splurges $1M in Ether on CryptoPunk Digital Collectibles
The batch of 34 NFTs was purchased by a whale who paid 557.5 ETH, or roughly $1 million.
Updated May 9, 2023, 3:16 a.m. Published Feb 22, 2021, 8:44 a.m.
A batch of digital collectibles known as CryptoPunks just sold for around $1 million in cryptocurrency in just minutes.
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According to the Larva Labs marketplace, 34 Punks were purchased Sunday by an unknown investor, who bought the lot for 557.5 ether – the native cryptocurrency of the ethereum network.
The sale comes as nonfungible token (NFT)-based art is seeing soaring interest, with top auction house Christie's even getting in on the action.
They forgot to grab a Fedora. https://t.co/0DwRGfv3sS
— Anonymous Fucking Nobody (@AFuckingNobody) February 21, 2021
NFTs are crypto tokens that can be given different attributes to represent variable assets or artwork characteristics, as can be seen in CryptoPunks such as Mohawk Thin and Frumpy Hair.
Also read: What Are NFTs and How Do They Work?
Larva Labs, the company behind the Punk collectibles, says 10,000 unique characters were originally created to be claimed for free by anyone with an Ethereum wallet.
See also: Virtual Property Sells for $1.5M in Ether, Smashing NFT Record
CryptoPunks are created on the Ethereum blockchain using the ERC-721 standard. They are embedded into a smart contract as the actual images were too large to store on-chain at their inception, according to Larva Labs' website.
Shortly after their release, all 10,000 CryptoPunks were snapped up and have since been trading on Larva's marketplace, where the unknown whale made their recent $1 million purchase.
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