CryptoPunks are now permanently housed in MoMA! 8 pixelated avatars have become art classics.

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York has officially included 8 CryptoPunks in its permanent collection, marking the most significant institutional recognition of on-chain art to date. The selected CryptoPunks, along with 8 Chromie Squiggles NFTs, are housed in MoMA's Department of Media and Performance Art.

What does MoMA's permanent collection mean?

(Source: MoMA)

The Museum of Modern Art in New York is one of the most influential modern art institutions in the world, with its permanent collection representing a canonical status in art history. From Picasso's “Les Demoiselles d'Avignon” to Van Gogh's “The Starry Night”, the works that enter MoMA's permanent collection signify recognition by the art historical community and curatorial circles as possessing enduring cultural value and historical significance. The inclusion of CryptoPunks is not only an acknowledgment of this NFT project itself but also a historic affirmation of the entire blockchain art movement.

These 16 works will be collected in the Media and Performance Art department of MoMA alongside video art, experimental techniques, and other new media art pieces, all of which can be viewed on the MoMA official website. This classification itself is significant: MoMA considers CryptoPunks as part of new media art, rather than merely digital collectibles or speculative assets. This positioning has granted legitimacy to NFT art within academic and art historical discourse.

More importantly, MoMA chooses to accept donations rather than purchases, a model that is very common in the traditional art world. Important artists or collectors donate works to top museums, which is both a recognition of the museum and an investment in the permanent preservation and display of the works. The donor of the CryptoPunks chose MoMA instead of selling these NFTs, showing that they value cultural heritage status more than short-term financial returns.

Who is donating? From founders to mysterious collectors

The list of donors itself is the “Hall of Fame” of the crypto art world. Matt Hall and John Watkinson, founders of Larva Labs, donated Punk #74 和 Punk #5160. As the creators of CryptoPunks, their donation is symbolic, representing the confidence of the creators in the historical status of their work. Erick Calderon (also known as Snowfro), founder of the generative art platform Art Blocks, along with his wife Mara, jointly donated Punk #2786, demonstrating the respect of leading figures in the generative art field for CryptoPunks as a pioneering project.

What is even more notable is the participation of Cozomo de' Medici's collection. This mysterious pseudonymous collector is widely believed to be the musician Snoop Dogg, whose massive investments and high-profile participation in the NFT space have brought mainstream attention to the entire industry. The Punk #7899 donated by Cozomo represents the recognition of the cultural value of CryptoPunks by a celebrity collector. Other donors include Rhydon, judithESSS, and the Tomaino family, all of whom hold significant positions in the crypto art community.

CryptoPunks Donors and Collection Number

Larva Labs founders (Matt Hall & John Watkinson): Punk #74 和 Punk #5160, the creators personally donated to establish its cultural heritage status.

Art Blocks founders (Erick & Mara Calderon): A tribute to Punk #2786, a leader in the generative art space.

Cozomo de' Medici Collection: Punk #7899, a cultural investment by the mysterious celebrity collector (suspected to be Snoop Dogg).

Famous Collector Group: Punk #3407（Rhydon）、Punk #4018 (Ryan Zurrer), Punk #5616（judithESSS）、Punk #7178 (Tomaino Family), a historic moment driven by the community.

Assisted in coordinating the 1OF1_art donation posts on platform X to thank MoMA curators Stuart Comer and Michelle Kuo for their support in this acquisition, showing that curators within the museum who hold an open attitude towards on-chain art played a key role.

The Cultural Status and Market Gap of CryptoPunks

CryptoPunks, created by Larva Labs in 2017, is widely regarded as one of the earliest NFT projects and laid the groundwork for later avatar collections. The project produced 10,000 24x24 pixel avatars before the later-defined ERC-721 token standard that defines Ethereum NFTs, using an earlier ERC-20 token wrapping method. This pioneering technical status earned it the title of “NFT ancestor.”

However, the rise in cultural status contrasts sharply with market performance. According to CoinGecko data, the total market capitalization of CryptoPunks is currently around $763 million, down from nearly $2.5 billion earlier this year, a drop of 70%. This significant gap exposes the decoupling phenomenon between the speculative nature of the NFT market and its cultural value. When speculative funds recede, projects with genuine cultural and historical significance become more clearly apparent.

According to data from The Block, CryptoPunks recorded the highest weekly trading volume since March 2024 in late July, with a transaction amount exceeding $24.6 million, indicating that market interest in blue-chip NFTs is reigniting. The decision by MoMA to collect may further reinforce this trend, as institutional recognition often becomes a support factor for prices.

Yuga Labs and Infinite Node Foundation's Strategic Layout

The recent MoMA acquisition is not a coincidence, but rather one of a series of initiatives by Yuga Labs to integrate CryptoPunks into major art institutions. In May of this year, Yuga Labs sold the intellectual property rights of CryptoPunks to the nonprofit organization Infinite Node Foundation, which focuses on the protection of digital art. The foundation, chaired by investor Micky Malka, announced plans to “integrate it into the world's leading art institutions” as part of its art management program.

This strategic shift is extremely clever. Rather than allowing CryptoPunks to continue as part of Yuga Labs' business landscape, it is better to hand it over to a nonprofit organization focused on cultural preservation, which brings greater cultural legitimacy to the project. The “Museum Collaboration Project” launched by the Infinite Node Foundation has clearly achieved initial success, with the MoMA collection being just the beginning, and more top art institutions may follow in the future.

The simultaneous selection of Chromie Squiggles is also worth noting. As the founding series of the generative art platform Art Blocks, it was launched by Erick Calderon in November 2020 and includes 10,000 pieces of generative art. According to data from CryptoSlam, Art Blocks reached a peak sales of over $587 million per month in August 2021. MoMA also collects CryptoPunks and Chromie Squiggles, demonstrating the museum's comprehensive recognition of different genres of blockchain art.