Digital Art Day Auction
Digital Art Day Auction
PRIVATE COLLECTION
CryptoPunk #976
Lot Closed
September 19, 06:04 PM GMT
Estimate
70,000 - 100,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
PRIVATE COLLECTION
Larva Labs
CryptoPunk #976
PNG, 24 x 24 pixels
Executed in 2017, this work is unique from a long form generative art series of 10,000 unique iterations and fully on-chain.
Token ID: 976
Smart Contract: 0xb47e3cd837ddf8e4c57f05d70ab865de6e193bbb
Token Standard: ERC-721
Blockchain: Ethereum
Minted by Larva Labs
0x4d8e16
Acquired from above
CryptoPunks launched on the blockchain in June of 2017. Created by Canadian software developers Matt Hall and John Watkinson, CryptoPunks were originally free to acquire for any ETH wallet holder. This was a true testament to the community-orientated and collector-lead approach of the avatar, PFP (profile picture) project and a notion that resonated highly with the hacker spirit that populated much of the early experimentation across Bitcoin and Ethereum. Furthermore, the technology used to create the Punks inspired the ERC-721 standard that is used for much of today’s digital art and collectibles. Since their inception in 2017, several Punks have entered the permanent collections of important art museums such as the ICA Miami, the Centre Pompidou, and the LACMA.
The finite and highly sought-after collection of CryptoPunks consists of 10,000 Punks, each with their own unique and distinct characteristics, in which no two are the same. Comprising of 9 Aliens, 24 Apes, 88 Zombies, 3840 Females and 6,039 Males, the Punks are further distinguished by a visual vocabulary of associated rarities and attributes. Every Punk has a unique set of attributes, with between 0 to 8 distinguishing characteristics. Notably, the 8 Punks devoid of any attributes all together have been dubbed as the ‘Genesis Punks.’
Referencing the wave of Protopunk that swept the United States in the late 1960s, which subsequently established a heady and requisite punk scene in New York and London in the mid-70s, the 24 x 24 pixel, 8-bit-style Punks embody the nostalgic punk spirit of a bygone yesteryear. Further reflecting the Crypto Anarchist philosophy that brought together many of the original proponents of the early crypto infrastructure, CryptoPunks are steeped in subcultural and subversive discourse, as well as notions of anti-establishment and counterculture in the NFT community.
Embodying the philosophies of pseudonymity, community, and tradability that are essential to the blockchain ecosystem, and further representing the technology’s elegant simplicity, the CryptoPunks journey to non-fungible stardom situates the collection alongside Modern & Contemporary art that seeks to reflect the nascent culture of our time. Simultaneously representing the original NFT community in the purest guise, Punks are the vanguard of our generation, challenging the maintained perspectives of artistic and cultural production. Creating a whole new audience for collecting art with digitally native collectors, Punks were born, and will continue to live, immutably, on the Ethereum blockchain.