In 2022, Yuga Labs, the creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, stunned the space by acquiring the intellectual property rights for CryptoPunks, Ethereum's most legendary art collection.
Some people loved the move, some people hated it. But since then, Yuga proved to be a good and fairly hands-off steward of the IP.
Where they did press in, and applaudably so, was elevating the cultural significance of the CryptoPunks. Consider their Punks Legacy Project, which gifted NFTs from the collection to art museums like ICA Miami.
Yet to me it did always feel a little weird that a company owned the IP. If the original artists, Matt Hall and John Watkinson, weren't the owners, then I thought CryptoPunks would be best served by a more dedicated, non-commercial home.
That tension wasn't lost on Yuga, who always approached the collection as a large and important responsibility. Amid that backdrop, Yuga stunned the space again this week, this time by selling the CryptoPunks IP—reportedly for ~$20M—to The Infinite Node Foundation, or NODE.
NODE, a non-profit endowment, launched in April 2025 with a $25M founding grant and a mission to become a “new cultural institution for digital art.”
They've kickstarted this mission in style by acquiring the CryptoPunks IP to become the collection's “permanent home” and a bastion for its growing artistic significance.
For starters here, NODE has brought on an advisory board featuring the CryptoPunks artists, Hall and Watkinson of Larva Labs, plus Art Blocks's Erick Calderon and Yuga's Wylie Aronow. As they've put it…
Larva Labs: “We believe NODE, and its non-profit long term focus, to be the perfect home for the Punks’ promotion and protection. […] We’re delighted to be joining the board of NODE and will be working directly to assist on a number of upcoming projects to properly showcase what makes the Punks so unique.”
Calderon, a.k.a. Snowfro: “All that’s mattered for me over the last few years with regards to Punks is that Punks end up in the right hands. […] And as someone that has been here every single day, still wearing a Punk after all these years, I could not be more confident that Punks are in great hands.”
Aronow, a.k.a. Gordon Goner: “Yuga is still the largest holder of CryptoPunks, and so we chose NODE because we believe they're best positioned to protect and preserve the long-term value of the Punks legacy. […] I also believe this deal gives Yuga some additional space to refocus on what it set out to build in the first place.”
As for what's next, NODE announced it's planning a CryptoPunks exhibition featuring all 10k pieces to coincide with the launch of its permanent exhibition space in Palo Alto next year. NODE also plans to run an Ethereum node there to directly support the collection's digital permanence going forward.
What I personally like most about this acquisition is that it further positions the CryptoPunks as important to, and belonging to, the cultural commons. In extension, it validates that NFTs can, in fact,be digital artifacts that deserve the same long-horizon stewardship as physical, IRL masterpieces.
The grand vision now? Complete CryptoPunks's transformation from cultural phenomenon into permanent art canon. This effort is a win for Punks and for NFTs in general, I say.
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