Christies Punks

Several multi-million dollar individual Punk sales had already occurred on the LarvaLabs CryptoPunk contract’s native trading platform before this Christies sale, leaving many highly optimistic for an absolutely astounding result. SaveArtSpace having their second city-wide public ad space art exhibition launching in New York city right on top of the auction really made a perfect compliment to this incredible event.

The Christie's auction on May 11 marks an historic moment of pop culture significance. It also officially brings Punks into the mainstream. In celebration, we have brought the Punks from Miami to New York!”

You might have spotted one of the Punks being auctioned on display throughout the streets of NYC on billboards, bus stops and phone booths on the day of the Christies auction! The digital displays really do make the Punks look great too. One could only imagine how Christies would choose to showcase Punks, and just how much the bundle would sell for...

Just a week after launching their 3rd NFT project, Meebits, the Larva Labs developer’s auctioned 9 CryptoPunks with Christies for $16.9 million. The second largest NFT auction of all time, trailing only Beeple’s $69 million ‘Everydays: The First 5,000 Days’ Christies auction. Incredible! Though this all might sound pretty great, not everyone cared for how the Punk auction was handled.

At one point there seemed to be some confusion as to whether or not ETH would be accepted as part of the auction. There was also some uncertainty as to whether DAOs were allowed to participate in the auction at all thanks to KYC and regulatory hurdles. These could have been some of the largest potential bidders! It’s also been theorized that some of the expected interest in this auction could have been influenced by news of an upcoming Sothebys NFT auction ‘Natively Digital’, which also features an Alien CryptoPunk auction. With the prospect of another Alien going up for sale, and getting to further gauge market interest, it doesn’t seem farfetched that interested parties might take a wait and see approach.  Shortly after the auction, once community ‘concerns’ had been voiced, there actually was a very respectful exchange with understandings reached.

Perhaps there’s not so much to be upset about after all. The event was groundbreaking, regardless of the selling price. There is even another Christies CryptoPunk auction scheduled in the near future. One which features Straybits single attribute Ape Cowboy!

With one major Larva Labs NFT auction behind us and a couple more coming soon, there is still a whole lot to be excited about! The shift we’ve seen over the past year in the NFT space has been more than stunning. Mainstream NFT adoption is past the point of needing any further validation, household names like Christies, Sothebys, and now Ebay have clarified NFTs for the masses.