Here’s why a CryptoPunk sold for $530M

A half-billion-dollar NFT “sale”? On-chain analysts say it may have just been an elaborate publicity stunt.

Crypto Twitter was briefly set ablaze Thursday night as a CryptoPunk non-fungible token (NFT) was purchased for a staggering half-billion dollars – a figure that would have made the sale one of the largest ever not just in NFT-land, but in all of art history.

However, on-chain analysts were quick to point out that the sale may have just been an elaborate publicity stunt.

A Twitter bot that tracks the sales of CryptoPunks first flagged the transaction shortly before 8 p.m. ET. If real, the 124,457.07 ETH sale worth over $530 million would have easily eclipsed the 4,200 ETH sale of an ultra-rare alien punk in March.

Punk 9998 bought for 124,457.07 ETH ($532,414,877.01 USD) by 0x9b5a5c from 0x8e3983. https://t.co/dmT6jDRC1W #cryptopunks #ethereum pic.twitter.com/UQlmm1oqkj

— CryptoPunks Bot (@cryptopunksbot) October 28, 2021

CryptoPunks have a floor price – a term referring to the lowest price at which a piece from a particular NFT collection can be bought – of 100 ETH, and the punk in question, #9998, lacks desirable features from a collector’s perspective, leading some to believe the purchase was a “fat finger,” a term referring to the immutable, irreversible errors endemic in blockchain.

A look at the chain, however, reveals that the purchase was just a clever bit of smart contract magic.

The purchase was made by a flash loan contract deployed by an address flagged by wallet profiler Nansen as a prolific DeFi user, NFT collector and smart contract deployer who also owns the blurr.eth Ethereum Name Service NFT.

This is so good :)

- Flash loan as much as you can
- List your punk for an insane amount of $ETH
- Buy it
- Other account gives you the ETH back
- Repayhttps://t.co/nlo24twyEx https://t.co/7CLhYAHKb8

— mariano.eth ✨ᕙ༼༽ᕗ✨ | (@nanexcool) October 28, 2021

Banterlytics, a contributor to on-chain analysis publication OurNetwork, told CoinDesk that the transaction was likely conducted solely “for the bantz.”

The transaction cost 0.19 ETH, or roughly $800, and the address included a message in the metadata of the transaction, saying “looks rare.”

A similar flash loan transaction was conducted in February to purchase a HashMask NFT for 139,000 ETH, currently the largest NFT sale on record – even if on a technicality.