Building on the success of Sotheby's inaugural series of NFT sales in 2021, which to date have raised $100 million since launch less than a year ago, Sotheby's announces the first nightly live auction dedicated to NFTs, Punk It!, a sale in a batch of 104 CryptoPunks on February 23rd.
Bringing in the historic estimate of $20-30 million, the sale marks the highest estimate for an NFT or digital art ever offered at auction and follows Sotheby's record-breaking sale of CryptoPunk #7523 for $11,8 million in June 2021 .
CryptoPunks, which were released in 2017 by studio Larva Labs, are some of the most iconic and valuable NFTs in the world which have become one of the main visual symbols of the global NFT movement. Their status in the crypto ecosystem and, more recently, in the fine art world, has evolved into a visual identity signifier for their holders. The current batch of 104 CryptoPunks that will appear in the auction were acquired together in a single blockchain transaction by the anonymous collector “0x650d”. This standalone acquisition links each of the 104 Punks with the same provenance, a portfolio that currently represents over 1% of the entire CryptoPunks collection, and places unique value on the group as one of the largest Punk collections held by a single portfolio. The buyer behind 0x650d will continue with this convention when the 104 Punks are sold together as one lot at Sotheby's.
Sotheby's will accept cryptocurrency, with the winning bidder having the option to make the final payment in Ether (ETH), Bitcoin (BTC), USD Coin (USDC) or in fiat currencies: all cryptocurrency transactions are subject to applicable laws and regulations. Sotheby's auctioneer for the sale will also announce live bids from the New York salesroom in the cryptocurrency Ether (ETH) alongside US dollars, following the paradigm shifting move in November when both Banksy's Trolley Hunters and Love Is In The Air (2006) with real-time cryptocurrency offers. Ahead of the live auction on 23 February, Sotheby's will host a special live panel discussion on the history of NFTs and CryptoPunk, focusing on how punks gained mainstream recognition, with famous collectors such as JAY-Z and Jason Derulo adopting punks as profile pictures . The panel will be live streamed from the Sotheby's New York salesroom and will include speakers to be announced at a later date. The exhibition will take place at the Sotheby's galleries in New York from February 18-23, as well as a virtual exhibition at Sotheby's headquarters at Decentraland.
