Yuga Labs may be in the process of selling off the intellectual property rights to the Crypto Punks collection. The flagship NFT collection became the property of Yuga Labs in 2022 and retained its status as an exclusive club.
Rumors are circulating about a possible buyer of intellectual property rights for the Crypto Punks collection. Yuga Labs, the Bored Apes producer, acquired the collecting rights to Punks in 2022. They have yet to comment on the potential rights sale. The company also retains the rights to Meebits, which it acquired in addition to Punks’ intellectual property rights.
Yuga Labs has issued or acquired 26 NFT collections, including exclusive top collections and more accessible collections, with a minimum price of only 0.01 ETH. Punks are still the leaders, with a bottom price of 41.47 ETH. The rumors also led to a new one prediction market on Myriad, where the prevailing bet is that the IP rights won’t be sold before January 23.
An advisor to Moca Network named the possibility that an as yet unknown buyer would acquire the rights to the collection. The potential buyer isn’t a traditional internet company or one of the other aggregator startups like Pudgy Penguins. The new owner may leave the collection untouched, while preserving the rare history of NFT.
The other suggestion is that the buyer could be a community of NFT enthusiasts who want to retain CryptoPunks’ IP rights for the preservation of the collection’s history. One possible buyer is a top NFT collector known as @seedphrase, who recently posted about CryptoPunks and interacted with other tweets related to the rumors.
CryptoPunks ❤️
— Seedphrase (@seedphrase) January 14, 2025
The collector owns one of the best punks NFTs, #8348, used as collateral for a record USDC 2.75 million loan. There is still no confirmation on the Punks’ purchase IP rights, and there are even more false rumors from potential buyers. For now, the move is considered part of NFT culture, with little practical value.
Punks started out as a property of Larva Labs. The collection was distributed for free to ETH holders and was limited to 10,000 NFT. Initially, Larva Labs retained the rights to each image. Later, Yuga Labs changed its approach by giving each individual NFT holder the IP rights to the image they purchased.
This allowed some owners to use their monkeys or other images for physical items or content. Punks also spread to other chains, with variations in the images. Most holders did nothing with their IP rights. The collection gained additional fame after becoming one of the few NFTs offered at Sotheby’s auctionsnext to the OpenSea market.
Punks’ bottom price rises after rumors of IP sales
The NFT market immediately responded to the rumors surrounding Punks’ ownership of the IP rights. The collection’s floor price immediately rose to a one-month high, from around 34 ETH to over 41 ETH.
CryptoPunks rose to a higher floor price after rumors that Yuga Labs would sell the IP rights. | Source: NFTPriceFloor
The collection sold 30 times in the past 24 hours, a sudden spike in activity after months of relatively few punks changing hands. Only 4,127 users own the collection, which they kept a firm grip on during the bear market.
Punks remain ahead of Pudgy Penguins, who maintain a floor price of around 27 ETH. The collection is valued at more than $1.3 billion, surpassing other masterpieces.
The separation between IP rights and NFT ownership raises questions about where the value of the collection lies. Currently there are multiple Punks derivatives on almost all networks. However, the original owners of rare air-dropped Punks will retain their valuables.
The 2024 bull market had a limited effect on NFT as the story was largely forgotten. The top collections maintained some activity, although there were suspicions of laundry trafficking. NFT activity has also shifted to Solana, leaving Ethereum with valuable but relatively illiquid collections.
Enthusiasts are still trying to preserve parts of the NFT culture with a mix of Web3 activities and physical merchandise based on top collections. Crypto Punks has also taken a similar route, releasing a luxury book that will be distributed at a live event on January 30 in New York.
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