As the foundational NFT-as-digital-identity collection, CryptoPunks have inspired derivatives that likely number into the tens of thousands; in a sense, any generative NFT collection whose tokens are designed to be used as a profile picture on social media can be seen as a Punk derivative.
However, there are a few derivative collections that are, canonically or aesthetically, very close to Punks—and these are worth a closer look.
v1 CryptoPunks
When Matt and John of Larva Labs launched CryptoPunks and their marketplace, and the Punks had all been claimed, they found a glitch in the smart contract governing the inbuilt, fee-free marketplace.
They wrote a new smart contract, airdropping new, identical Punk tokens to the holders of the originals. These new tokens are called v2 Punks, but even though they were created second, they are the canonical, authorised-by-creator CryptoPunks.
In 2021, a wrapper was created to patch the glitch in the smart contract of the initially-claimed Punks. They became tradeable on NFT marketplaces like OpenSea, and have come to be called “the v1 collection.”
They are a popular collection, and many Punk lovers see them as a great entry point to Punk collecting! Many in the v1 community consider the v1 Punks the OG, canonical Punk collection, but whatever your view, they are a great part of the Punk community.
https://www.nfthistory.org/wiki/CryptoPunks_V1
CryptoPhunks
Also known as Phunks, are a NFT collection created by Zagabond and launched in June 2021. Phunks parody CryptoPunks by reversing their images (ie. phunks face left). After being banned from platforms like OpenSea due to copyright issues, the community established their decentralized marketplace. They advocate for true decentralization, open-source development, and community support, standing against censorship and centralized control in the crypto space.
Their artistic merit is as a piece of performance art, interrogating the nature of copyright and ownership in a world where Web3 makes ownership and provenance provable by code.
Ordinal Punks
It’s always been understood that you can only have non-fungible tokens on blockchains that enable smart contracts. Bitcoin was never seen as one of these chains, but in January 2023, that changed with the advent of Ordinals - a protocol that enabled the creation and trading of NFTs on the OG blockchain.
It is a testament to the memetic power of Punks that within the first 650 Bitcoin NFTs created (called inscriptions), the Ordinal Punks came into existence.
Unlike v1 Punks and Phunks, which have collections of 10k tokens, there are only a hundred Ordinal Punks, and while they are based on the OG generative Punks, some of their traits and appearances are different! Birthday hats, laser eyes and purple skin appear, interspersed with cigarettes, masks and many other recognisable Punk traits. They were generated by the PunksNotDead open-source algorithm.
Their scarcity, diversity and provenance as some of the earliest Ordinals makes them incredibly valuable, selling for prices comparable to the flagship CryptoPunks collection!