Key Takeaways Larva Labs is the creator of the iconic CryptoPunks NFT collection. The design studio also launched a collection called Meebits last year, making $80 million a day. Larva Labs has taken a tough stance against the CryptoPunks copycats and has recently taken controversial action against V1 Punks that sprang from the original CryptoPunks smart contract. Share this article The CryptoPunks community is increasingly frustrated with Larva Labs. Chris Williams, the editor of Crypto Briefing, explains why. our daily conversations). Of all the things I didn’t pull the trigger on, I was most disappointed with CryptoPunks – it was such an obvious trade after that Beeple auction, so it didn’t really come as a shock when they went over for pretty big house prices NFT summer. But more recently, CryptoPunks have fallen out of favor, making me less salty about my miss. There are many reasons the project has fallen out of favor, including the community of occasional short-sighted snobs lucky enough to get to Ethereum early, and a certain collection of monkeys that caught the eye of Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon. But the biggest reason why CryptoPunks has lost its crown is thanks to its creator, Larva Labs. Punk #7610, owned by Visa (Source: Larva Labs) For those who don’t know, Larva Labs is a design studio formed by Matt Hall and John Watkinson. A few creatives who had previously worked on mobile apps and projects for companies like Android released the now iconic 10,000 pixel art Punk characters for free in June 2017, long before anyone had to deal with whitelisting or other pre-mint shenanigans. As with other major crypto projects such as Bitcoin and Yearn.Finance, the fair launch capitalized on the wild success of CryptoPunks. It was also very early; by the time The New York Times and TechCrunch were writing about NFTs in 2021, CryptoPunks were already historical artifacts. Christie’s and Sotheby’s auctioned them off, Jay-Z and Visa bought them themselves, and we all know what happened to the rock bottom prices after that. But even as CryptoPunks cemented its place as a cultural gem, Larva Labs managed to tarnish its reputation several times. Hall and Watkinson dropped an uninspiring project called Meebits at the top of May and staged a Dutch auction starting at 2.5 ETH — about $8,000 at the time — in the knowledge that people priced out of Punks would buy into the hype ( in all fairness, Punk holders could coin a Meebit for free). They made $80 million in a day. Nothing has happened to Meebits since then, and the collection underperformed any notable NFT avatar project in terms of price. They also signed a Hollywood deal that would allow their NFTs to be used on the big screen. While Punk holders welcomed the move, it was a warning of what was to come: Around the same time, the pair became more aggressive in issuing takedown requests due to copyrights on the various Punk knock-offs popping up on Ethereum and other blockchains. V1 Punk #6083 (Source: V1 Punks) Recently, Larva Labs made an issue with V1 Punks, a series of algorithmically generated Punks that are almost indistinguishable from those in the main collection (unlike their more famous symbolic cousins, V1 Punks have a pink background). V1 Punks were born from the original CryptoPunks smart contract, and while Larva Labs scrapped them in 2017, a community has since formed around them by wrapping them up as ERC-721s and recognizing their OG status. Larva Labs doesn’t like how V1 Punks have grown in popularity as it apparently ruins the prestige of the main collection. As Cobie summed up well this week, while Hall and Watkinson usually sit back with any kind of community building, they recently responded to the latest V1 Punks rally by dumping 210 ETH value on the market and using all the guns on copyright. . In a Discord post, Hall said he wants to prevent V1 Punks from using the CryptoPunks name or artwork. Curiously, he then added that the 210 ETH would go to the Rainforest Foundation. CryptoPunks today have a floor of about 69 ETH – of course I wish I owned one. However, they are far from the most valuable NFT avatar out there today. That title goes to Bored Ape Yacht Club, the celebrity-approved collection that has seen a meteoric rise by embracing Web3 values. The team behind the project, Yuga Labs, gave the holders copyrights and lucrative airdrops, collaborated with global powerhouses such as Adidas, and will soon be releasing a token. As I noted the week after Bored Ape Yacht Club launched, Larva Labs may have learned something from them. Don’t get me wrong: CryptoPunks are likely to have tremendous historical significance, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the entry price for a Punk soars in the future. But that’s assuming the creator doesn’t completely kill the legacy of the project first. Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this post owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies. They also had exposure to YFI in a cryptocurrency index. Share this article The information on or accessible through this website was obtained from independent sources believed to be accurate and reliable, but Decentral Media, Inc. makes no representation or warranty as to the timeliness, completeness or accuracy of any information contained on or accessed through this website. Decentral Media, Inc. is not an investment advisor. We do not provide personal investment advice or other financial advice. The information on this website is subject to change without notice. Some or all of the information on this website may be out of date, or may be incomplete or inaccurate. We may, but are not obligated to, update any outdated, incomplete or inaccurate information. You should never make an investment decision about an ICO, IEO or other investment based on the information on this website, and you should never interpret or otherwise rely on the information on this website as investment advice. We strongly recommend that you consult a licensed investment advisor or other qualified financial professional if you are seeking investment advice on an ICO, IEO or other investment. We do not accept compensation in any form for analyzing or reporting ICOs, IEOs, cryptocurrency, currencies, tokenized sales, securities or commodities. See full terms and conditions. How CryptoPunks Inspired a Wave of NFT Avatars As one of the earliest examples of non-replaceable tokens, CryptoPunks are the most coveted NFT avatars in existence. 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