CryptoPunks and Ethereum
posted November 1, 2021 by Sam Tverskoy
For years, people have been investing in real estate, currency, gems and other things that hold value. Currently, a lot of people are investing in crypto currency because of Bitcoin. Crypto currency is money used virtually on the internet. However, many investors are starting to invest in digital paintings called CryptoPunks. CryptoPunks were released in June of 2017 as one of the first unique tokens. CryptoPunks have begun selling for outrageous sums of digital money that can be translated into thousands of dollars.
To put it simply, CryptoPunks are unique collectible characters stored on an online system that is used for trade. That is, they are 24×24 pixel fun little pop art portraits of punky guys and girls generated algorithmically and tokenized. Currently there are only 10,000 in circulation. Their creation began as an experiment, conducted by software developers Matt Hall and John Watkinson in 2017. The pair wanted to create a software program capable of generating thousands of unique avatars. They are simply digital paintings only used for the trade of Ethereum. CryptoPunks are valuable because they are popular and scarce. Thousands of people are willing to buy them for a lot of money, and there are only a few available.
CryptoPunks are only sold via Ethereum. Ethereum is a digital currency that operates on a decentralized computer network, or distributed ledger, called a blockchain, which manages and tracks the currency. It can be useful to think of a blockchain like a running receipt of every transaction that's ever taken place in the cryptocurrency. As a blockchain network, the network's users can create, publish, monetize, and use applications on the platform, and use its Ether cryptocurrency as payment. The current conversion rate for Ethereum is 1Ether = 4,188 USD. Currently Ethereum's success is due to CryptoPunks. The reason why CryptoPunks made Ethereum successful is because when people started buying the CryptPunks they could only buy them with Ether.
Is Ethereum a good investment? While Ethereum does have the potential to revolutionize society, it's uncertain whether it will ever become widely adopted. For these reasons, Ethereum is a risky investment right now. While it could be revolutionary and make you a lot of money someday, there are no guarantees that it will succeed over the long run. However, if you're willing to throw away 6 million dollars on CryptoPunks to jump on this trend, be my guest.
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