NFT investor bought Punk for $1.5 million. Was it accidental or intentional?

adminFebruary 1, 2024

The non-fungible token market recorded positive growth today after a cryptocurrency investor purchased a collection of cryptocurrency NFTs for over $1.5 million. This massive sale resulted in a 14% increase in the global non-fungible token market compared to the previous day.

Punk #5363 NFT sells for $1.5 million

Data recorded by on-chain data aggregator Cryptoslam.io confirms that the CryptoPunks #5363 NFT collection has been sold on the secondary market. The massive sell-off caused a surge in the global NFT market, bucking the recent short-term NFT market downward trend.

Cryptopunk

Launched in June 2017, CryptoPunks is a collection of non-fungible tokens that previously came from digital asset incubation studio Larva Labs but are now owned by Bored Ape Yacht Clun creator Yuga Labs. CryptoPunks, a collection of NFTs in limited supply of 10,000 pixelated NFTs hosted on the Ethereum blockchain network, is now one of the most successful NFT projects.

According to sources familiar with the matter, an anonymous buyer may have mistakenly placed a bid of 655 ETH instead of 65.5 ETH for Punk #5363, which the previous owner happily accepted. The bid could be placed because the bidder had a balance of almost 655 ETH.

A bidder mistakenly* placed a bid of 655E instead of 65.5E on this puncture.
The owner happily accepted. pic.twitter.com/QbCigmcfa1
— Quit (🙌,🦄) (@0xQuit) January 31, 2024

Nonetheless, speculation remains that this incident may be a wash sale. According to the explanation, wash trading is a form of market manipulation where cryptocurrency investors sell and buy the same collection of NFTs simultaneously, giving a false impression of NFT market activity.

NFT market status check

The non-fungible token market looks bullish today due to recent massive punk sales. Over the past 24 hours, trading volume in the global NFT market reached $34 million, a 14% surge from the previous day. The number of NFT investors purchasing NFTs also increased slightly following the punk sale.

NFT sales

Source: Cryptoslam.io, Global NFT Sales in Last 24 Hours

Ethereum, a popular blockchain network for NFTs, is the most traded blockchain network in the NFT ecosystem, with transaction sales reaching $13.9 million. Ethereum-based NFTs, led by CryptoPunks, have increased Ethereum transaction sales by 40% in the last 24 hours.

Ethereum NFT