An ultra-rare pixelated “alien” from the CryptoPunk collection, which consists of 10,000 non-fungible tokens, has been sold for a record-shattering $23.7 million.
Chain CEO Deepak Thapliyal revealed himself as the buyer of Punk #5822 in a tweet.
— Deepak.eth ⛓ (@dt_chain) February 12, 2022
Prior to that, Thapliyal had spent roughly $2 million on NFTs from The Bored Ape Yacht Club collection, which surpassed CryptoPunks by floor price for the first time in December.
Thapliyal bought the Punk by using leverage on decentralized finance protocol Compound Finance.
Launched back in 2017, Larva Labs’ CryptoPunks were largely responsible for pushing NFTs into the mainstream, with multiple prominent celebrities, such as Jay-Z, becoming part of the club. Each Punk is unique in its appearance, but the “alien” ones are considered to be extremely rare: there are only nine of them in existence.
Wealthy NFT owners now use their Punks as collateral, following the suit of the owners of traditional art pieces.
Alex DovbnyaThe most expensive NFT
Punk #5822 has dwarfed the value of the CryptoPunk NFT purchased by billionaire Shalom Meckenzie in June ($23.7 million and $11.8 million, respectively).
However, Beeple's collage called “Everydays — The First 5000 Days,” which sold for $69 million at Christie's auction in March, remains the most expensive NFT ever sold.
In late October, the NFT community was stunned by a $532 million CryptoPunk purchase, but it later turned out that the buyer simply pulled off a public stunt by selling the Punk to himself with the help of a flash loan.
Sotheby’s will auction a collection that consists of 104 CryptoPunk as a single lot called “Punk It” in late February.
Arman Shirinyan
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Dan Burgin