The cryptocurrency market has been down for months and NFT prices and trading volume have crashed as a result. But even in the midst of what is known as the crypto winter, an NFT can still sell for several million dollars.
Last Tuesday, CryptoPunk #4464 sold for 2,500 ETH, or just over $2.6 million at the time of the sale. This particular NFT is one of 24 monkeys in the entire collection of 10,000 profile pictures, and it features a cigarette, eye mask, and durag.
In terms of ETH price, it tied with two other monkeys for the fourth-biggest NFT CryptoPunks sale of all time, according to the official market. However, given the fluctuation in the price of ETH, the USD value of each sale has varied dramatically.
Punk 4464 bought for 2,500 ETH ($2,615,224.91 USD) by 0x561786 from 0x33eaae. https://t.co/xqtkT3BeER #cryptopunks #ethereum pic.twitter.com/iCAAG4LKHg
— CryptoPunks Bot (@cryptopunksbot) July 12, 2022
For example, when CryptoPunk #4156 sold for 2,500 ETH in December 2021 with ETH at $4,156, the sale was valued at over $10.25 million at the time. When CryptoPunk #5577 sold for the same amount of ETH last February, it was valued at $7.7 million.
Only alien-like CryptoPunks sold more ETH than monkeys. The record selling CryptoPunk in both ETH and USD is CryptoPunk #5822, an alien sold for 8,000 ETH in February, or $23.7 million at the time. It was purchased by Deepak Thapliyal, CEO of blockchain startup Chain.
It is unknown who bought the $2.6 million Punk, although the same wallet already holds 25 CryptoPunks in total and has spent 3,600 ETH to acquire them to date.
According to data from CryptoSlam, this is the largest NFT sale in the last 30 days, surpassing the two Bored Ape Yacht Club which sold for $1.2 million and $1 million, respectively.
An NFT is a blockchain token that represents ownership of an object, including things like profile pictures, artwork, collectibles, and video game items. The NFT market surged in 2021 to reach a trading volume of $25 billion, to which has been added around $20 billion so far in 2022. However, the trading volume of NFT has fallen sharply since then. the beginning of May, against the background of the general collapse of the cryptocurrency market.
CryptoPunks is one of the most capitalized and successful NFT projects. Launched in 2017 by Larva Labs, the Ethereum project began as a free experiment, but has so far generated over $2.3 billion in secondary trading volume amid growing demand.
Only Axie Infinity and the Bored Ape Yacht Club saw higher trading volumes, according to CryptoSlam. Yuga Labs, the creator of the Bored Apes, recently purchased the CryptoPunks intellectual property from Larva Labs and unlocked the commercial rights for the owners, allowing them to use their images to create products and other projects, just like the Bored Apes.