Wow, despite not being all that old, this article has already aged incredibly well.
As the whole crypto market has surged up and to the right into 2021 NFT's too have exploded in popularity with a seeming inevitability and zeitgeist like enthusiasm that highlight what I imagine many of us would cautiously acknowledge this time around, despite the froth, *feels* like more than just a moment.
Perhaps it's in part the result of a certain maturity and durability to the industry as a whole as it emerges from the most recent crypto winter surprisingly intact and bolstered by an intangible sort of... societal *readiness* for the decentralized future (and perhaps I'm reading into that but it's most starkly evidenced imho by some of the numerous sea change level phenomena we've all experienced in the decade long last twelve months, the pandemic induced surge in retail trading and associated WSB/Robinhood/GME fiasco, the now pseudo-normalized elephant-in-the-room multiple trillion dollar stimulus packages injected into a manic-and-clearly-punch-drunk-yet-inexplicably-sturdy-and-irrationally-exuberant economy, the corollary massive capital influx musical chairs game and institutional interest in BTC as it steamrolls over reasonable price targets set last year with whiplash inducing frequency; among a myriad other sort of 'signs of the times').
And then of course beyond the more predictable awakening of the many hibernating digital and crypto native tribes, there's been a thrilling somewhat improbable -- and pretty significant in my estimation -- mainstream vote of confidence in and adoption of NFT's both conceptually and via wallet in the form of the wildly successful NBA endorsed TopShot, as well as the jaw dropping (and truly well deserved) provenance of "overnight success fifteen years in the making" underground cult hero and digital artist @Beeple with his B20 and subsequent partnership with famed real world auction house Christie's as they take NFT's from relatively unknown to *thoroughly* on the radar of the elite of the monied art world.
Meanwhile, the backdrop has been (and more to the point) the article thesis corroborating surge in CryptoPunk valuation. Over the past few weeks the price discovery needle has seemed to point toward a new higher floor almost daily in counterintuitive and optimistic lockstep with the increase in the underlying ETH they're valued in.
Add to that a few record breaking high profile million plus dollar denominated sales and an influx of interest from a number of mainstream celebrities including but not limited to I believe @garyvee, @mrbeast and perhaps even, it's rumored, @chamath, and you have a recipe for the uncovering and discovery of a possibly history making digital asset. All told it could be reasonably argued, at least insofar as the current bull market continues lurching forward, to indicate that the market agrees. The OG of NFT's seems to have achieved that delicate balance of traits to make it the near perfect benchmark for the nascent industry as it evolves onto the global stage.
Finally as icing on the cake there's the authors' slightly prescient prediction of the oncoming financialization of the punks through a variety of derivative and ETF like instruments which can in fact now already be seen in action at places like @NFTX_ and @NIFTEXdotcom.
All of this is to say that as long as we keep bending the trajectory of the crypto DeFi and NFT spaces toward the tantalizingly possible decentralized future, I too am particularly bullish on the CryptoPunks, not only as a store of value, but as a bulwark of things to come, and as the natural head-cornerstone of the NFT space. ✌️
Wow, despite not being all that old, this article has already aged incredibly well.
As the whole crypto market has surged up and to the right into 2021 NFT's too have exploded in popularity with a seeming inevitability and zeitgeist like enthusiasm that highlight what I imagine many of us would cautiously acknowledge this time around, despite the froth, *feels* like more than just a moment.
Perhaps it's in part the result of a certain maturity and durability to the industry as a whole as it emerges from the most recent crypto winter surprisingly intact and bolstered by an intangible sort of... societal *readiness* for the decentralized future (and perhaps I'm reading into that but it's most starkly evidenced imho by some of the numerous sea change level phenomena we've all experienced in the decade long last twelve months, the pandemic induced surge in retail trading and associated WSB/Robinhood/GME fiasco, the now pseudo-normalized elephant-in-the-room multiple trillion dollar stimulus packages injected into a manic-and-clearly-punch-drunk-yet-inexplicably-sturdy-and-irrationally-exuberant economy, the corollary massive capital influx musical chairs game and institutional interest in BTC as it steamrolls over reasonable price targets set last year with whiplash inducing frequency; among a myriad other sort of 'signs of the times').
And then of course beyond the more predictable awakening of the many hibernating digital and crypto native tribes, there's been a thrilling somewhat improbable -- and pretty significant in my estimation -- mainstream vote of confidence in and adoption of NFT's both conceptually and via wallet in the form of the wildly successful NBA endorsed TopShot, as well as the jaw dropping (and truly well deserved) provenance of "overnight success fifteen years in the making" underground cult hero and digital artist @Beeple with his B20 and subsequent partnership with famed real world auction house Christie's as they take NFT's from relatively unknown to *thoroughly* on the radar of the elite of the monied art world.
Meanwhile, the backdrop has been (and more to the point) the article thesis corroborating surge in CryptoPunk valuation. Over the past few weeks the price discovery needle has seemed to point toward a new higher floor almost daily in counterintuitive and optimistic lockstep with the increase in the underlying ETH they're valued in.
Add to that a few record breaking high profile million plus dollar denominated sales and an influx of interest from a number of mainstream celebrities including but not limited to I believe @garyvee, @mrbeast and perhaps even, it's rumored, @chamath, and you have a recipe for the uncovering and discovery of a possibly history making digital asset. All told it could be reasonably argued, at least insofar as the current bull market continues lurching forward, to indicate that the market agrees. The OG of NFT's seems to have achieved that delicate balance of traits to make it the near perfect benchmark for the nascent industry as it evolves onto the global stage.
Finally as icing on the cake there's the authors' slightly prescient prediction of the oncoming financialization of the punks through a variety of derivative and ETF like instruments which can in fact now already be seen in action at places like @NFTX_ and @NIFTEXdotcom.
All of this is to say that as long as we keep bending the trajectory of the crypto DeFi and NFT spaces toward the tantalizingly possible decentralized future, I too am particularly bullish on the CryptoPunks, not only as a store of value, but as a bulwark of things to come, and as the natural head-cornerstone of the NFT space. ✌️
Fantastic. Glad. Great Punks!
I was a Punk in 1983 in East Berlin :)