Yuga Labs, the digital asset incubation studio and the team behind the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club non-fungible token collections, has finally sold the intellectual property (IP) for the CryptoPunks NFT collection. The digital asset firm, which acquired Punks IP in 2022, has sold it to Infinite Node Foundation (NODE), a nonprofit focused on digital art. Speculation about Punks’ IP sales began looming in January 2025.
Yuga Labs Sells Punks IP To NODE
In a May 13 blog post, Yuga Labs confirmed that it has finally sold the intellectual property (IP) for the CryptoPunks non-fungible token collection to Infinite Node Foundation (NODE). The acquisition of CryptoPunks NFT IP, plus its additional $25 million endowment, establishes NODE as “the most well-capitalized non-profit dedicated solely to digital art in the United States of America.
The Infinite Node Foundation (NODE) is pleased to announce the acquisition of the intellectual property of @cryptopunksnfts from @yugalabs.
Launched by Larva Labs in 2017, CryptoPunks are widely regarded as the catalyst for the modern digital art movement. Their $3.07B in sales… pic.twitter.com/RQ6apT8A3o
— NODE (@nodefnd) May 13, 2025
Launched in 2017, CryptoPunks is a renowned non-fungible token collection from the digital asset incubation studio Larva Labs. It features a limited edition of 10,000 pixelated NFTs hosted on the Ethereum blockchain network. The CryptoPunks NFT collection has grown to become one of the leading NFT collections in the NFT market, holding a market capitalization of nearly $1 billion. Several rare Punks from the CryptoPunks collection are worth millions of dollars.
In March 2022, Yuga Labs, the creator of the globally acknowledged Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection, acquired the intellectual property of the CryptoPunks NFT collection. During the auction, the Bored Ape creator bought the Meebits NFT collection along with the CryptoPunks NFT IP. Meebits is a non-fungible token collection featuring a fixed set of 20,000 3D voxel characters hosted on the Ethereum blockchain network.
Yuga Labs is home to some of the leading NFT collections in the global NFT market, including the Mutant Ape Yacht Club, a non-fungible token collection featuring a limited supply of 20,000 NFTs hosted on the Ethereum blockchain network, Otherside, Kodamara, Bored Ape Kennel Club, and Twelvefold. The Bored Ape Yacht creator, Yuga Labs, also holds intellectual property (IP) for the Moonbird Oddities, Grails, and Emotes NFT collections.
The rumors about the CryptoPunks IP sales began spreading in January 2025. At the time, many crypto users made their guess, with some of them guessing that the digital asset firm Yuga Labs could have sold the Punks IP to HiFo Labs, the creator of the Nakamogos NFT series. In line with those rumors, the CryptoPunks NFT sales volume jumped +500% to over $3 million, becoming the most-selling NFT collection in the global NFT market.
Punks IP Sales Explained
Even though the terms of the Punks IP sale were disclosed, Node has said it has assembled an advisory board to oversee the CryptoPunks NFT collection. The board comprises Matt Hall and John Watkinson, the artists behind the NFT collection, and a representative of Yuga Labs, among others. “Our role is to build a networked architecture that allows digital art like CryptoPunks to thrive within both digital and art-historical canons,” the non-profit firm added.
In response to the Punks IP sale, the trading sales volume for the CryptoPunks NFT collection has exponentially surged. Data compiled by cryptoslam.io, a known crypto market data aggregator and a non-fungible token explorer, shows that the trading sales volume for the CryptoPunks NFT collection has surged by 329% in the past 24 hours. During this time, the Punks NFT has raised a trading sales volume of $3.9 million.
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