Christie’s, one of the most famous auction houses in the world, has recently completed the auction of 9 CryptoPunk NFTs for a value of $16.9 million total, marking a milestone for the Non-Fungible Token (NFT) collection.
The British auction house handled the auction of Beeple’s “Everydays: The 500 days” collection, which sold for $69 million back in March of 2021 in what would become the most expensive NFT sale to this date.
#AuctionUpdate 9 rare CryptoPunks from Larva Labs’ own collection makes history realizing $16,962,500 pic.twitter.com/qsPs5nqVYY
— Christie’s (@ChristiesInc) May 12, 2021
The auction finished on May 11th but despite selling for about $2 million each, it is far from the record established by the franchise as Cryptopunk #3100 and CryptoPunk #7804 sold for over $7.57 each.
Join the Punk Hunt! We’ve teamed with @saveartspace to present Pixelated, a month-long, New York City-wide public art exhibition of Larva Labs’ CryptoPunks.
Visit the link for the location of each CryptoPunk ahead of our sale of 9 CryptoPunks tomorrow: https://t.co/eGzzDKlN2R pic.twitter.com/uANRFujqCI
— Christie’s (@ChristiesInc) May 10, 2021
Christie’s also partnered with Save Art Space to present a month-long public art exhibition in the city of New York that will feature the 193 CryptoPunks, including the 3 auctioned by the house.
Titled “Pixelated”, the exhibition will run from May 10th to June 6th and will take place in 153 art installations on bus shelters, phone booths, and billboard spaces.
How CryptoPunks Took the World By Storm
CryptoPunks were some of the first NFTs ever created on the Ethereum network with a total of 10,000 punks, pixelated images based on the 70s London punk scene with different traits assigned by an algorithm to ensure their uniqueness
The collection started as an experiment by Matt Hall and John Watkinson as they explored the idea of generating digital art that provided its owners with a strong sense of ownership based on the uniqueness of each Punk depending on the rarity of their traits.
While Punks were initially given for free, with their creators keeping 1000, the unique style of the NFTs quickly became popular among crypto enthusiasts who started collecting and trading them, eventually making some of the rarer be valued at hundreds of thousand dollars.
The 2020 NFT booming further boosted the popularity of CryptoPunks, quickly raising the value of some of their iterations to be worth more than a million dollars as in the case of Cryptopunk #3100 and CryptoPunk #7804 ( $7.57 million each), CryptoPunk #4156 ($1.25 million), and CryptoPunk #6965 ($1.54 million).
The auctioning of CryptoPunks by Christies is a reflection of the growing importance of NFT collectibles in popular cultures, reaching stages that were historically associated and reserved for traditional art pieces.
Merriam Webster Is Selling the Definition of NFT
NFT collectibles like CryptoPunks are not the only NFTs growing in popularity, with organizations like the Times having joined the frenzy by launching special NFT editions of their covers as part of an auction.
Now, Merriam Webster, one of the most reputable English dictionaries, has announced both the addition of “NFT” to its dictionary and the minting of an NFT representing the same definition.
The Definitions of NFT given by Merriam Webster are “a unique digital identifier that cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided, that is recorded in a blockchain, and that is used to certify authenticity and ownership (as of a specific digital asset and specific rights relating to it)” and “the asset that is represented by an NFT”.
The NFT being auctioned will also earn the winner the right to have their OpenSea profile linked in the definition’s page, in addition to “owning” the definition. All proceeds from the auction will be donated to Teach for All, an organization that helps children in disadvantaged communities via education programs.
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