- Well, that escalated quickly. Two days ago, we reported some growing dissatisfaction among CryptoPunks NFT owners over the limited rights they get under the NFT License that apparently governs the use of the CryptoPunk characters (capped at $100,000 annually for merchandising only, and no derivative works).
- One of the most vocal critics was the owner of CryptoPunk #4156 (aka @punk4156), who tweeted: “i love punks, but the copyright issue kind of broke my heart. i held deep 8 figures of punks and the devs unfollowed me when i suggested it. wouldn’t respond to DMs. i’m going to keep 4156 (probably forever), but will otherwise be focusing my time on nouns, toadz and other CC0.”
- Today, CryptoPunk #4156 sold for $10.26M, making it the second highest CryptoPunk NFT sale ever based on USD, second only to the Covid Alien, which sold at a Sotheby’s auction for $11.7 million. It appears that the owner’s disagreement with the Larva Labs’ position on the license for CryptoPunks was too much to bear, although the $10.26M should soften the blow.
- If you’d like to learn more about the mystery over the CryptoPunks copyright license, you can download my paper, The Cryptic Case of the CryptoPunks Licenses: The Mystery Over the Licenses for CryptoPunks NFTs.
