NFT Mania Is Back? Maybe Not, but a CryptoPunk Just Sold for a Record $56.3M

A hallmark of the last cryptocurrency bull market was the remarkably high sale prices for various non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

The world has largely moved on from NFTs, with enthusiasm for crypto products embellished with quirky images now directed toward memecoins – so, so many memecoins.

Yet, on Thursday, a sign of bull markets past returned: A CryptoPunk NFT just sold for a record price of $56.3 million. The prior all-time high of $23.7 million was set in February 2022, months before the crypto winter got truly dark.

Punk 1563, depicting a pixelated woman with dark hair and blue eyes, fetched 24,000 ether (ETH) in the transaction. As recently as September, it was offered for sale for less than 30 ETH – meaning the latest deal represented a huge markup versus recent pricing.

NFTs have historically seen all manner of weirdness around sales. There was the time in 2021 when another CryptoPunk technically sold for $532 million, though blockchain data clearly show the same person was on both sides of the trade.

And there have been allegations that NFTs were used for money laundering.

It’s not clear what the motivations were for Punk 1563, though.