CryptoPunks Wakes Up: Sales Surge as the Floor Nears $90,000

ALEX: Somebody paid two hundred and forty-five thousand dollars for one CryptoPunk today. Rank ninety-two, out of just under ten thousand — about as rare as this collection gets. That's nearly three times what an ordinary floor punk costs right now.

ALEX: And the floor itself is the real headline. CryptoPunks is pushing toward ninety thousand dollars a piece, and sales this week are up roughly sevenfold from the week before. That's not a blip, that's a collection waking all the way up.

ALEX: One account on X was pointing at two and a half million dollars in punk sales over the last day and calling it a reawakening. I won't hand you that as gospel, it's someone's own count, not ours — but with a two-hundred-forty-five-thousand-dollar sale sitting in there, I believe it.

ALEX: Here's what makes it a story and not just a big number, though. Punks and Meebits came out of the same house, Larva Labs made both. Today the punk floor is having its best run in a while, and Meebits' floor dropped sixteen percent. Same family, completely opposite day. That tells you this isn't "blue chips are back," it's "this specific blue chip is back."

ALEX: Quick thing, since rank came up: when I say a punk is ranked ninety-two, that's its spot in the whole collection, rarest to most common. Low number means rare piece, and rare pieces are exactly what people reach for once they've decided a collection is worth paying up for again.

ALEX: While we're on expensive art, a Fidenza sold for about ninety-five and a half thousand dollars today — almost the punks floor by itself, for one generative piece. Different collection, same appetite at the top of the market.

ALEX: Rest of the market in one line: World of Women had the move of the day, floor up almost twenty-three percent, and nothing I'm seeing explains it, so I'll flag it instead of inventing a reason.

ALEX: And since we're on money spent on JPEGs — half of X spent today mocking someone who reportedly paid six hundred thousand dollars for an off-brand Kamen Rider NFT. Meanwhile the actual blue chips just quietly had their best week in months.