gm!
big appreciation post for @johnkarp and the @NFCsummit team 🇵🇹👏
sadly couldn’t make it this time, but had the pleasure of partnering the past 3 years
NFC’s always been an important event for digital art, bringing Europe and the Americas together
with NFT Paris closing, it’s now carrying the torch
independent, large-scale events like this are brutal to pull off in any market
in a bear market they’re nearly impossible. razor thin margins, endless moving parts, always doing more with less
John and his team have continually adapted and delivered a world class experience anyway
they deserve our support and respect
see you next year 🫡
The Creators of CryptoPunks: Matt Hall and John Watkinson of Larva Labs
CryptoPunks, the groundbreaking 10,000-piece collection of 24x24 pixel art characters that helped launch the entire NFT movement, was created by Matt Hall and John Watkinson, the duo behind Larva Labs.
Launched in June 2017 on the Ethereum blockchain, CryptoPunks consists of algorithmically generated portraits humans, zombies, apes, and aliens with unique combinations of traits like hairstyles, accessories, and expressions. Often called the “OG” NFT project, it predates most of what followed and directly inspired the ERC-721 token standard.
Hall and Watkinson, Canadian creative technologists and longtime collaborators, built the project as an experiment in digital ownership. They developed a generator that produced the entire collection programmatically, drawing inspiration from 1980s punk culture and 1990s cyberpunk aesthetics.
The pixelated, minimalist style was designed to feel like tangible digital avatars. Originally, 9,000 Punks were given away for free (with only gas fees required), while the creators retained 1,000. What began with modest interest exploded years later into a cultural phenomenon, with individual Punks selling for millions of dollars at peak.
Larva Labs, which the pair formalized in 2005, focused on code as an artistic medium. CryptoPunks was not hand-drawn piece by piece but emerged from a custom algorithm that mixed and matched traits, making it one of the earliest examples of fully on-chain generative art. Their follow-up projects, like Autoglyphs (fully on-chain text-based art) and Meebits (3D voxel characters), further explored similar ideas. In 2022, Yuga Labs (creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club) acquired the IP rights to CryptoPunks, though Hall and Watkinson have remained influential voices in the space.
The duo’s work highlights the experimental roots of NFTs blending technology, art, and questions about value and ownership in the digital age. What started as a small creative challenge became the blueprint for avatar projects, community-driven culture, and institutional recognition of blockchain art.
Today, CryptoPunks remain instantly recognizable icons, a testament to Hall and Watkinson’s vision that helped spark a global digital art movement.
BTC > ETH > punks > $PNKSTR
As BTC's recovery continues, I expect eth and punks to run soon.
7 of the 42 cheapest listed punks are PNKSTR listings.
PNKSTR holds 41 punks priced up to 69 eth.
It will reprice quickly imo once its punks start to sell.
APESTR did a quick 8x with the recent BAYC renaissance, before giving back 75% of those gains as its inventory of listings depleted.
PNKSTR's listing are spread more evenly and it has the added benefit of fee contributions from other strategy tokens.
The protocol is a perpetual bid on punks.
Expect volatility but the potential upside is significant as the flywheel gains speed: the punks floor rises, PNKSTR's listings sell, its treasury accumulates more punks and the token supply burns.
NFA 🧷
📢 NEW V1 CRYPTOPUNKS MARKETPLACE UPDATE
We’ve added the missing V1/V2 context—now available directly on every punk profile:
✅ V2 airdrop transaction in the ledger (with explanation)
✅ V1 ↔ V2 paired wallet status
✅ One-click link to the corresponding V2 punk