- A sought-after CryptoPunk has sold for $10.26 million after the holder disagreed with the terms of holding it
- There has been growing concern in the CryptoPunk community over the restrictions placed upon owners
- CryptoPunks have an earnings ceiling of $100,000 from their holding
A renowned CryptoPunk holder has sold punk #4156 after a disagreement with the founders Larva Labs over the copyright restriction imposed on owners. The owner, who also goes under the Twitter name Punk4156, effectively auctioned off the NFT for $10.26 million, fetching the second highest price for a CryptoPunk and starting off a debate over another NFT copyright issue.
CryptoPunk Copyright Issue Ends in Sale
The copyright fight has been brewing all week as dissatisfaction among CryptoPunks NFT owners has been growing over the limited rights they are awarded under the NFT license that apparently governs the use of the CryptoPunk characters. This is stated on the website as such:
…Meebits grants you a limited, worldwide, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use, copy, and display the Art for your Purchased Meebit for the purpose of commercializing your own physical merchandise that includes, contains, or consists of the Art for your Purchased Meebit (“Commercial Use”), provided that such Commercial Use does not (a) include any form of collaboration or involvement of any brand or other third party, or (b) result in you earning more than USD$100,000 in gross revenue each year. In the event your Commercial Use exceeds USD$100,000 in a given year, you will need to enter into a commercial license with us…
It seems that many CryptoPunk owners were not aware of the details of this license and earnings cap but they soon were, with Punk4156 becoming one of the more vocal critics:
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
— 4156 (@punk4156) December 5, 2021
As a result of this dissatisfaction, Punk4156 began listening to bids for his incredibly sought after NFT, with rising bids being met by slight reductions which he posted on Twitter:
The winning bid eventually came in at 2,500 ETH ($10.26 million), making it the second highest CryptoPunk NFT sale ever, second only to the Covid Alien, which sold at a Sotheby’s auction for $11.7 million. If you’re upset about the restrictions placed upon you for buying something, selling it for over $10 million is probably a good way to go about softening the blow.
