The most expensive sales of CryptoPunks NFTs: Millions of dollars in pixels

Even if you are not an avid NFT enthusiast, then you must have heard about the CryptoPunks NFT project. And here are some interesting facts about them:

• 10000-pixel males, females, punks, zombies, apes, which is one of the first generative collection on the Ethereum blockchain,
• This breakthrough collection made Larva Labs world famous,
• Each of the 10,000 tokens is a benchmark, a legend and an indicator of prestige, status and elitism in the NFT market and far beyond,
• CryptoPunks have such world celebrities as Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Jordan Belfort, Logan Paul, Mark Cuban, Serena Williams, Heidi Klum, Alexis Ohanian and many others,
• It was CryptoPunks from the entire NFT market that was first put up for auction by the auction house Christie’s,
• Total secondary sales exceeded 1.1 million ETH (around $2 billion), some of which sold for millions of dollars.

Want to know the details of the most expensive sales of the moment? Then we present the most expensive sales of CryptoPunks NFTs of all time as of 06/14/2023.

CryptoPunk #9998

Most expensive CryptoPunk #9998 was sold on October 29, 2021 for 124,457 ETH (about $533.7 million at the time of the deal). This is a woman (38% of all tokens have this trait) with 3 attributes (45%):

• Black lipstick (6%),
• Clown eyes green (4%),
• Wild white hair (1%).

Such a combination of attributes does not make this token rare and especially valuable, but it was it that hit the headlines as the most expensive sales of CryptoPunks in the entire history of the industry.

The history of Cryptopunk #9998 has become a clear example of wash trading. Although this token is listed as the most expensive token ever traded in the entire market, it is actually a bogus trade.

And here’s why: the transaction was made with a credit sent to a smart contract and passed on to the merchant. The seller then sent 124,457 ETH to the buyer, who repaid the loans. After that, the token, which immediately hit the headlines of all the media, was transferred back to the seller. The NFT was never technically sold; that is, it was just a mixture of transactions between addresses. Later, Larva Labs made a statement that they do not record this deal in the ratings and block the opportunity to make an offer.

CryptoPunk #5822

NFT #5822 was sold on February 13, 2022 for 8,000 ETH (about $23.4 million at the time of the deal). It is one of 9 rare Aliens with one attribute (only 3% present) – Bandana, making it one of the rarest tokens in the collection.

The stunning deal broke the previous NFT sale record #7523 “COVID Alien” at Sotheby’s “Natively Digital: A Curated NFT Sale” back in June 2021. NFT was bought by Deepak Thapliyal @dt_chain, the CEO of Chain (a blockchain infrastructure company) who goes by the name Deepak.eth. This transaction was carried out using the Compound Finance DeFi protocol.

👽 pic.twitter.com/lQg6DzSttr

— Deepak (@dt_nfts) February 12, 2022

CryptoPunk #7804

NFT #7804 was sold on March 11, 2021 for 4200 ETH (about $7.7 million at the time of the deal). This is one of 9 rare Aliens with 3 attributes:

• Cap forward (3%),
• Pipe (3%),
• Small shades (4%).

The buyer of the rare NFT turned out to be an anonymous crypto investor peruggia-v.eth @peruggia_v. In addition to this asset, the collector has 6 more “neighbors” from the same collection.

CryptoPunk #3100

NFT #3100 sold on March 12, 2021 for 4200 ETH (about $7.7 million at the time of the deal). It is also one of 9 rare Aliens with one attribute (3%) Headband (4%). The buyer was anonymous 0x7b8961, who has not made any more transactions with this digital asset for more than 2 years.

CryptoPunk #2924

NFT #2924 was sold on September 29, 2022 for 3,300 ETH (about $4.4 million at the time of the deal). This is one of 24 Apes that owns 1 attribute – Hoodie (3%). The buyer was anonymous 0x9045de.

CryptoPunk #4156

NFT #4156 was sold on July 15, 2022 for 2691 ETH (about $3.3 million at the time of the deal). It is one of the 24 Apes that owns 1 attribute – Bandana (5%).

NFT-focused venture capital 1Confirmation announced via Twitter that it is now the new owner of the popular Punk, posting a King Kong-themed illustration.

Just scooped punk #4156 AMA 🙊 pic.twitter.com/E2rgvYM6gy

— 1confirmation (@1confirmation) July 15, 2022

CryptoPunk #5577

NFT #5577 was sold on February 9, 2022 for 2501 ETH (about $7.7 million at the time of the deal). It is one of the 24 Apes that owns 1 attribute – Cowboy Hat (1%). It was purchased by anonymous 0xcfc505. And a month after the purchase, he transferred the asset to wallet 0x3924b7, which owns 9 CryptoPunks in total.

CryptoPunk #4464

NFT #4464 was sold on July 12, 2022 for 2500 ETH (about $2.62 million at the time of the deal). It is one of 24 rare Apes with 3 attributes:

• Eye Mask (3%),
• Vape (3%),
• Do-rag (3%).

He was acquired by anonymous 0x561786, and today he owns a total of 6 CryptoPunks.

CryptoPunk #5217

NFT #5217 sold on July 31, 2021 for 2250 ETH (about $5.45 million at the time of the deal). It is one of 24 rare Apes with 2 attributes:

• Gold Chain (2%),
• Knitted Cap (4%).

The seller turned out to be Snowfro (Eric Calderon), a well-known artist and creator of the Art Blocks generative art platform. And the buyer was an anonymous collector 0xe30161, who currently owns 7 tokens of this collection.

CryptoPunk #8857

NFT #8857 was sold on September 11, 2021 for 2000 ETH (about $6.63 million at the time of the deal). This is one of 88 Zombies with 2 attributes:

• Wild Hair (4%),
• 3D Glasses (3%).

It was purchased by anonymous 0xdf37ac, who has the only one CryptoPunk in his collection. But besides him, he is fond of CrypToadz, of which he has 7 pieces.

Opinion of NFTmetria

CryptoPunks are the dream of every NFT collector, a historically significant legend for the entire crypto market and a very valuable asset for every owner. After analyzing the most expensive sales of CryptoPunks NFTs, we can draw several conclusions:

• Investors who are ready to spend millions of dollars on digital assets almost always remain anonymous, thereby increasing their own crypto security.
• The main criterion for the value of a token within a collection is its rarity, which consists of attributes and their combination. This is confirmed by each of the most expensive sales of CryptoPunks NFTs presented above, except for the fictitious transaction for 124457.0675 ETH.