As the foundational NFT-as-digital-identity collection, CryptoPunks have inspired projects 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 influenced by Punks.
However, there are a few 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 discovered a glitch in the smart contract governing the inbuilt, fee-free marketplace.
To address this, they deployed a new smart contract and airdropped new, identical Punk tokens to the holders of the originals. These replacement tokens are called v2 Punks, and 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 original contract, making the initially-claimed Punks tradeable on NFT marketplaces like OpenSea. These early tokens have come to be called "the v1 collection."
They are a historically significant part of the Punk story, and many collectors view them as the original issuance of CryptoPunks. Whatever your view, they remain an important chapter in the history and culture of Punks.
In June 2025, a new community-driven marketplace, v1cryptopunks.com, was launched. It is owner-focused, built specifically for v1 holders, and aims to deliver a dedicated ecosystem with ongoing feature rollouts and enhancements over time. Looking ahead, this marketplace has the potential to strengthen the v1 community's identity, provide new utility for holders, and solidify v1 CryptoPunks as a cornerstone of Punk culture and collecting.
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 (i.e., 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 Phunks, which have a 10k supply like CryptoPunks, there are only a hundred Ordinal Punks. While they draw inspiration from the original Punks, some of their traits and appearances are unique—birthday hats, laser eyes, purple skin—mixed with classic Punk traits like cigarettes, masks and mohawks. 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!