Rare CryptoPunk Sells for $2.7M as Blue-Chip NFTs Resurge

CryptoPunk #4464 with the rare ape-trait sold for 2,500 ETH on July 12 as blue-chip NFTs see a summer revival.

The CryptoPunk was bought by a pseudonymous collector of CryptoPunks and another NFT collection, Meebits, for approximately $2.7 million, in the fifth largest CryptoPunk sale since the collection launched in 2017. CryptoPunk #4464 had an estimated value of roughly $2.7 million before the sale and is the 32nd-rarest CryptoPunk according to Rarity ranking site Rarity.Tools.

The most expensive CryptoPunk was CryptoPunk #5822, purchased by Chain CEO Deepak Thapliyal in February 2022 for 8,000 ETH, worth about $23.7 million at the time shattering the previous record of $11.8 million paid for #7523 in June 2021. The three most expensive CryptoPunks each have the “Alien” trait, unique to nine CryptoPunks. An unaccepted bid was made on punk #9280 for $2.72 million at press time.

Blue-chip NFTs seeing a mini-revival

The buyer of CryptoPunk #4464 was “zoomc,” who owns 25 punks and spent a whopping $3.9 million buying the 24×24 algorithmically-generated 8-bit images. CryptoPunk #4464 was one of 22 punks purchased in the last 24 hours, and the most expensive NFT over the previous seven days, according to crypto sales tracker nonfungible.com. The cheapest punk in the previous 24 hours was #3761 for 77ETH (about $80,000). Zoomc is currently selling three punks, #2586, #6679, and #8662.

So-called blue-chip NFT collections have seen a notable uptick in sales volume in the last 30 days. In the last five days, two NFTs from the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection were sold for over $1 million apiece. Seven CryptoPunks ranging from $336,000 to $874,000 round off the top 10. This despite a yearly trough in NFT sales in June 2022, totaling just over $1 billion, according to Chainalysis.

Digital art NFTs have taken a nosedive

NFT sales in the broader scheme of things have cooled. Only a handful of digital-art NFTs made the cut at a Christie’s auction earlier this year. Mike Winkelmann, more commonly known as Beeple, whose famous ‘Everydays: The First 5,000 Day’ sold for $69.3 million in 2021, sold a digital landscape artwork for $252,000 at the auction house on June 28, 2022.

The renowned art auction house said that sales from NFTs had totaled only $4.6 million this year, compared to last year’s sales of $150 million. Focus is shifting, said Nicole Sales, head of digital art sales at Christie’s, from speculation in 2021 to art in 2022.

NFT sales totaled $40 billion last year and enjoyed a  peak of $12.6 billion in January. Sales in 2022 so far have totaled $42 billion.