OpenSea takes the collection down while Larva Labs team sells their V1s
CryptoPunks V1 has had a turbulent 24 hours, as Larva Labs announced their disapproval of the community-led project. Aside from publicly dismissing the V1 collection, Larva Labs also took action and asked OpenSea to remove V1 Punks from their listings.
Interestingly, this comes several days after Larva Labs team members already sold the CryptoPunks V1 they owned for a total of almost 230 ETH or over $710,000 at the time of writing. The devs explained they thought this would show their disliking of the V1 project. However, in essence, they managed to push the floor price up and attract additional attention to the project. At the time of writing the floor price for a V1 Punk is $42.830.
DappRadar reported on the CryptoPunks V1 project recently, as the collection was steadily attracting attention. However, with the recent delisting from OpenSea, trading volume and transactions processed by the V1 Punks smart contracts have gone downhill. OpenSea is the biggest NFT marketplace, responsible for $4.5 billion in trading volume in January. Not having V1 Punks on that marketplace, makes it difficult to reach a bigger audience.
Importantly, Larva Labs’ actions were deemed inappropriate and even compared to a rug pull. The team first sold their V1 Punks and then started attacking the project with a DMCA takedown. In some aspects, these allegations have some foundation. Seeing this, the CryptoPunks V1 community took action through several important governance votes.
CryptoPunks V1 on the defensive
In response to the action taken by Larva Labs, the CryptoPunks V1 community hired a team of intellectual property lawyers. According to the official tweet, the V1 community will fight any efforts to create tension between the V1 collection and the official V2 Punks by Larva Labs.
Additionally, the CryptoPunks V1 community is holding a vote regarding a name change for the project. The goal is to separate themselves from the Larva Labs collection. Following this announcement, the V1 Punks Twitter account saw a wave of questions and allegations. Most of these stated that the project is a fraud and a scam.
In essence, CryptoPunks V1 could be considered a scam. Importantly, all artwork in the NFTs was originally created by Larva Labs. However, there is an argument to be made that V1 Punks are simply a resurrected code on the blockchain that allows collectors to safely trade their crypto assets. A similar thing happened last year when projects like Crypto Cats, Moon Cats, and Crypto Skulls were rediscovered.
DappRadar will continue monitoring the CryptoPunks V1 versus V2 battle. If you want to learn more about both of these collections, check out the links below. Additionally, you can follow DappRadar on Twitter to get the latest news about the Punks debacle.
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