The boom of PFP Art
PFP Art has become a cult. PFPs, or profile pics, were some of the first NFTs to have been launched which were designed to be used as avatars for social media accounts.
PFPs are computer-generated so that each NFT is unique with some having more rarity and scarcity than others, since particular traits might be on a small percentage of the NFT collection and mixed with other rare traits, which makes the rarity even higher.
The beginning of PFP Art dates back to 2017 when Larva Labs launched “CryptoPunks” which was 10,000 algorithmically generated portraits of punks, all of only 24 x 24 pixels. And the ultra-rare aliens and zombies were highly limited. At the time, CryptoPunks were given away for free! And in August of this year, over $1 billion in sales has been achieved. In June, CryptoPunk #7523 sold for $11.7 million in a Sotheby’s auction. And on 28th October, CryptoPunk #9998 sold for 124,457 ETH (about $532 million)!
And during the NFT boom of this year, there have been many successful NFT projects such as: Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) which launched in April this year with each selling for 0.08 ETH (roughly $250) and by October, sales had surpassed $540 million!; Meebits (another Larva Labs project), comprising 20,000 procedurally generated 3D characters was launched in May, and in July, Meetbits #17522 sold for 1,000 ETH ($2.1 million); Pudgy Penguins, launched in July, consists of 8,888 portly penguins and were sold out in 19 minutes, with sales volume within 24 hours rose to $14.3 million; Sup Ducks sold out within 48 hours of their release generating $1.5 million in revenue; and a more recent one, MekaVerse that launched on 7th October, sales volume has surpassed $60 million in less than 24 hours!
PFP projects differ from typical NFT sales. Given the manic buying frenzy, tens of thousands of PFP NFTs are “dropped” on a specific date and time, and are randomly distributed to the buyers at which time the NFTs are minted onto a marketplace such as Opensea.
PFP Art are more than just an NFT but a “community”. The owners get access to community channels, exclusive perks, merchandise, access to exclusive collections, events, etc. It makes the NFT collection more exciting since it builds a strong community around a topic that is of interest to a large segment of people. So PFP collections unite the digital and physical world… so makes collecting so much fun and the chance to meet “like-minded people”!
Homo Spacien Team
