Original Cryptopunks Finally On The Market After Fix To Bug Which Made Them Unsellable

The original cryptopunks — which were left mostly out of circulation due to a bug — are now being listed for sale after being wrapped in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) compliant with the ERC-721 standard.

What Happened: As the official V1 Punks website explains, Cryptopunks first launched in June 2017, their smart contract contained a bug which caused the money paid in the sale of the cryptopunk to be credited back to the buyer, along with the acquired NFT.

Essentially giving the purchaser the punk for free. For this reason, listing a cryptopunk for sale would only result in its owner losing their NFT.

See Also: WHY ARE CRYPTOPUNKS VALUABLE?

To remedy the bug, Cryptopunks creator Larva Labs developed a new version of the contract, which was used to distribute the punks. Now, thanks to a community-led project to wrap the original Cryptopunks in ERC-721 tokens, those punks can finally be listed and exchanged freely, allowing them to be traded on the market several years after their release.

The official website explains, "V1 Punks are not a derivative but are in fact the 'original/classic' Cryptopunks."

Larva Labs also tweeted about V1 Punks that "we don't like them, and we've got 1,000 of them" that the company intends to sell.

OpenSea data shows a significant interest in this NFT series, with an average sale price of 9.5 ETH (about $2,713 as of press time) and an all-time volume of 3,085 ETH — currently equivalent to $8.25 million.

The cheapest V1 Punk is currently on sale for 1.5 ETH, or about $2,630.