Yuga Labs Will Be Donating CryptoPunk NFTs to Museums

Yuga Labs, the owner of the NFT collections Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks, announced that it will be donating a CryptoPunk to the ICA Miami as part of its new Punks Legacy Project.

Alex Harutunian

Nov 26, 2022 - 1 min read

Recently CryptoPunks knocked off another Yuga Labs collection, Bored Ape Yacht Club, to regain its status as the most valuable NFT collection. Now Yuga Labs is taking the first step to bring NFTs to museums across the globe by donating CryptoPunk #305 to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami. This particular Punk was donated as a reference to the city’s original area code, also Miami is the hometown of two of Yuga’s co-founders.

The punk is blonde, female, sporting bleach blonde bob, purple lipstick, and VR goggles. It will be viewable at the museum after a private unveiling event takes place on December 2 during Art Basel. The digital artwork is one of 10,000 NFTs in the CryptoPunks collection, which Yuga acquired from Larva Labs last year. This will be the second Punk in the ICA Miami’s collection, which is the only major museum to hold an NFT from the collection.

Punks Legacy Project aims to donate and install several other CryptoPunks in contemporary art museums around the world. The company will also offer museums resources on Web3 education, crypto art history, crypto security, and NFT best practices. The project is led by Noah Davis, who left Christie’s to head the CryptoPunks division.

“CryptoPunks are contemporary art. They belong in museums,” Davis said in a statement, calling the NFTs “equal parts art, graphic design, technology, and radical communal experiment”.

CryptoPunks are a great example of PFP Avatar NFTs used as profile pictures across social networks. Many owners see their NFTs as a core part of their online brand identity, and some have gained a lot of followers thanks to their Punk’s appearance and corresponding number. For instance, Punk #6529 — who started a venture capital firm, 6529 Capital, based around their identity.

Many owners have a personal association with their CryptoPunks, but on a broader scale, Yuga Labs is aiming at establishing art world credentials and historical narrative for these NFTs. It’s a key differentiator between the Punks and Yuga’s own Bored Apes, as the company now oversees both. We continue to observe.