Cryptopunk NFT’s $4.4 million sale (briefly) revives flatlining market

A CryptoPunk NFT selling for more than $4 million, the collection’s biggest transaction in more than seven months, provided a small glimmer of hope on Wednesday amid a dark crypto winter marked by cratering prices and volumes.

Part of the most-valuable NFT collection to date, CryptoPunk #2924, an 8-bit image of a hooded ape set against a purple background, sold for 3,300 ether, according to OpenSea, the world’s largest marketplace for digital assets.

CryptoPunk #2924’s sale, valued at about $4.4 million – given ether’s current USD value – constitutes an anomaly amid a broader picture of falling NFT sales volumes. The single sale ranks as the fourth highest price paid for one of the collection's tokens, in ether terms, but it was only the tenth highest price paid in USD terms due to ETH’s falling value.

The largest CryptoPunk sale ever, in both ether and USD terms, occurred in February when #5822 fetched 8,000 ether, which at the time was $24.8 million.

The market has been particularly challenged since May when sales for the art and collectibles genre of NFTs plummeted from a weekly volume of nearly $300 million to as low as $50.8 million, a more than 80% drop. After sliding further, volumes have leveled off slightly in recent weeks, with weekly sales hovering around the $20 million to $25 million range, according to data compiled by The Block Research.

“Investor-turned-DJ” and NFT connoisseur Danny Maegaard, also known as DJ Seedphrase, sold Cryptopunk #2924 to a buyer in Texas, according to CoinDesk. Maegaard owns 20 more NFTs from the same collection, the news site also said.

CryptoPunks are a rare NFT collection composed of 10,000 individual tokens. The pixelated headshots come in the form of humans, apes, zombies and aliens.

Chart: The Block Research