THE ORIGINAL
- Deployed 9 June 2017
- Custom contract, no safe marketplace
- 10,000 free claims
- Dormant for roughly five years
RECOVERY PROTOCOL
2017 / 2026
ON-CHAIN PERMANENCE
ORIGINAL CONTRACT // STILL LIVE
PSYBORG
V1 CRYPTOPUNKS
THE CONTRACT THAT
WOULDN'T DIE.
In June 2017, ten thousand CryptoPunks were claimed on a contract with a fatal flaw. Five years later, a collector holding 83 stranded punks asked one developer a simple question: can you fix it?
SPECIMEN // 5905
REC
24×24
LAVENDER LAYER
ERC-721
CONTRACTV1 → WRAPPED
STATUSRECOVERED
SALE1,000 ETH
DATE01.02.2022
NO ART CHANGED
SAME IMAGE HASH
10K SUPPLY
JUNE 9 2017 // ORIGINAL CONTRACT DEPLOYED
10,000 PUNKS // FREE TO CLAIM
JUNE 22 2017 // V2 AIRDROP
FIVE YEARS ASLEEP // THEN A WRAPPER
JANUARY 17 2022 // V1 RETURNS
LAVENDER // CHOSEN BY COMMUNITY VOTE
NO ART CHANGED // SAME IMAGE HASH
1,000 ETH // TOP V1 SALE
MARCH 2 2025 // A PUNK PAIR LANDS ON THE MOON
01
A BUG IN
ORIGIN FILE
A BUG IN
THE MACHINE.
Block 3,842,489.
June 9, 2017. 12:22:50 AM.
CryptoPunks were not supposed to become a movement. They were an experiment: 10,000 algorithmically generated characters, 24 by 24 pixels each, free to claim on Ethereum.
The first contract went live two weeks before the collection the world now knows. It worked, until people started trading. In Solidity 0.4, one line did not copy an offer, it pointed at it. By the time the contract credited the seller, the seller field had been overwritten with the buyer's address. The punk moved. The buyer could withdraw the ether.
Larva Labs could not patch an immutable contract. They deployed again. On 22 June 2017, V2 was minted and airdropped to V1 holders, adding bidding and fixing the flaw. The original ten thousand were left where they were: in wallets, in the dark, still owned, and effectively unsellable.
“We thought we had blown it.”
Matt Hall, Larva Labs
BUYPUNK.SOLV1 // THE FLAW
function buyPunk(uint punkIndex) payable {
Offer offer = punksOfferedForSale[punkIndex];
// offer is a pointer, not a copy
punkIndexToAddress[punkIndex] = msg.sender;
balanceOf[offer.seller]--;
balanceOf[msg.sender]++;
punkNoLongerForSale(punkIndex);
// seller is now msg.sender
pendingWithdrawals[offer.seller] += msg.value;
}
BUYER GETS REFUND
SOLIDITY 0.4
ONE LINE.
FIVE YEARS.
ONE FIX.
FIVE YEARS.
ONE FIX.
THE AIRDROP
- Deployed 22 June 2017
- Same art, fixed transfer logic
- Bidding added
- The collection the market knows
02
THE SPARK
DORKIS → V1.
Two collectors.
One broken contract.
Psyborg and Frank met through We Are Dorkis, the hand-drawn collection Frank co-founded in September 2021. Psyborg was one of its biggest holders, with around 200 Dorkis.
He was also an original CryptoPunks claimant, sitting on 83 V1s he could not sell. In November 2021 he told Frank the story of the broken contract and asked whether it could be fixed. Frank said he had just ruined his Christmas holiday. Then he started reading.
On 13 December 2021, Leonidas published an early NFT timeline that included CryptoPunks V1. Interest stirred. The same week, Psyborg and Frank began working through a solution. On 14 December, Psyborg challenged Frank to build a wrapper, and put a punk on the table for the moment the project hit 1,000 ETH in volume.
The next two weeks moved fast: roughly 100 V1s were sold in private trades to historical-NFT collectors, waking up a market that had been asleep since 2017.
PRIVATE CHANNELDEC 2021
PSY
83 punks. No marketplace. Can you fix it?
FNK
You've just ruined my Christmas holiday.
PSY
Build the wrapper. I'll put a punk up at 1,000 ETH.
FNK
Lavender or nothing.
● CHANNEL CLOSED // BUILD STARTED
Reconstructed from published accounts. Not a literal transcript.
03
WRAP IT.
THE BUILD
WRAP IT.
DON'T TOUCH IT.
A recovery layer,
not a remake.
The answer was not a new punk. It was a wrapper: a contract that holds the original V1 in custody, untouched, and mints an ERC-721 receipt that modern marketplaces can trade.
Frank based his wrapper on 0xfoobar's earlier attempt, and says so in the contract header. What he added was a marketplace of their own: a marketplace contract and a helper contract, with the front end built by Simon from Frank's instructions. The marketplace paid sellers in the same transaction as the sale. There was no withdrawal function, so there was nothing sitting in the contract to withdraw incorrectly.
01
V1 CONTRACT
0x6Ba6…DB8D
The original 2017 punks, held in custody.
LOCK
02
WRAPPER
0x282B…8C5D
Mints an ERC-721 receipt. Art untouched.
TRADE
03
MARKETPLACE
0x759c…03cE
Fee-less. Seller paid in the same transaction.
READ
04
HELPER
0xe919…91d8
Aggregates data so the front end stays fast.
THE LAVENDER VOTE
A Discord vote chose lavender as the V1 differentiator. No stripe, no overlay on the art. The background says “wrapped”, not “remixed”.
#A79AFF
SAME IMAGE HASH
Both contracts point to the same image hash. Changing the art would have turned every V1 into a derivative. The wrapper left the pixels alone.
BUILT FOR A DMCA
The team expected a takedown, so they built their own marketplace before the legal attack arrived. When OpenSea delisted the collection, trading did not stop.
IMMUTABLE, INCLUDING MISTAKES
In October 2022 a burned punk caused a read call to revert and took the site down. The helper was rewritten and redeployed. The wrapper, where the punks live, was never touched.
“We did not touch the art. Both contracts point to the same image hash, and changing it would have made the V1s a derivative.”
FRANK PONCELET // FRANKNFT.ETH
04
NINE YEARS
MASTER TIMELINE
NINE YEARS
OF SIGNAL.
From a buggy launch
to the surface of the Moon.
2017
09 JUN
THE ORIGINAL CONTRACT GOES LIVE
Larva Labs deploys 10,000 CryptoPunks on Ethereum. Free to claim, gas under a dollar. The collection is an experiment in artificial rarity and on-chain ownership.
16 JUN
THE CLAIM RUSH
A Mashable article sends the remaining punks out the door in about a day. Trading begins, and so does the bug.
17 JUN
THE FLAW SURFACES
Early claimer Hemba notices the withdraw function is paying him more ether than it should. Larva Labs tweets a warning. The seller-side bug in buyPunk is now public knowledge.
22 JUN
V2 AIRDROP
Larva Labs re-mints all 10,000 punks on a fixed contract and airdrops them to V1 holders. Bidding is added. The original contract goes quiet for five years.
2021
MAR
THE FIRST WRAPPER
Developer 0xfoobar deploys an earlier V1 wrapper. It works, but adds a red ribbon to the art and has no community around it. A DMCA later takes it off OpenSea. The idea survives the execution.
SEP
WE ARE DORKIS
Frank co-founds We Are Dorkis, 4,724 hand-drawn NFTs made with pen and coloured pencil. Psyborg becomes one of the largest holders, with around 200. The relationship that leads to V1 starts here.
wearedorkis.com ↗13 DEC
LEONIDAS LIGHTS THE FUSE
Leonidas publishes a timeline of early NFTs on Ethereum, including CryptoPunks V1. Original claimants realise the punks in their old wallets might still matter.
14 DEC
THE CHALLENGE
Psyborg asks Frank to build a wrapper and offers a punk for when V1 volume reaches 1,000 ETH. Frank spends the Christmas holiday reading the contract. Around 100 V1s sell privately over the following two weeks.
2022
17 JAN
THE WRAPPER GOES LIVE
Block 14,022,431. The new wrapper adds accurate metadata, removes the ribbon, and uses a lavender background chosen by a Discord vote. The art is untouched. A fee-less private marketplace follows a week later.
23 JAN
LARVA LABS ENTERS THE CHAT
A pseudonymous Larva Labs wallet starts wrapping and selling V1s: 40 wrapped, 39 sold, almost $700k. It will take the community almost a week to notice.
24 JAN
THE PRIVATE MARKETPLACE OPENS
The first private sale: V1 Punk #1936 for 7.5 ETH. The community now has a place to trade that does not depend on OpenSea.
25 JAN
“WE DON'T LIKE THEM”
Larva Labs tweets that V1 punks are not official, and mentions they own 1,000 of them. The Streisand effect detonates. A hundred thousand people look exactly where they were told not to.
01 FEB
1,000 ETH
V1 Punk #5905 sells for 1,000 ETH, the project's biggest sale and the marker Psyborg set in the original challenge.
02 FEB
THE APOLOGY
Matt Hall apologises in the Larva Labs Discord: “We made a mistake by interacting with this contract.” The proceeds are put at 210 ETH, matched with a donation to the Rainforest Foundation. The same statement promises legal action.
07 FEB
DMCA
Larva Labs sends a takedown notice to OpenSea. The collection is delisted. LooksRare and the project's own marketplace keep trading.
10 FEB
OWNERSHIP RENOUNCED
The marketplace contract ownership is renounced. It can no longer be paused or modified. A counter-notice follows on 11 February: you cannot DMCA your own art.
11 MAR
YUGA BUYS CRYPTOPUNKS
Yuga Labs acquires the CryptoPunks IP from Larva Labs. Larva Labs does not sue. The ownership change, not a courtroom win, takes the pressure off.
18 MAR
BACK ON OPENSEA
V1 is relisted. Five weeks of delisting end. On 23 March, Larva Labs transfers its final V1s to Yuga: 1,084 unwrapped and one wrapped.
APR
BRICK LANE
Psyborg puts in an offer on a gallery space in London's Brick Lane, with the ground floor reserved for curated NFT exhibitions and launch parties. The project gets a physical room.
JUN
PAINTED ON ROEBLING
Masnah's three-storey NFT wall at Grand and Roebling in Williamsburg is documented by The Verge. Each mural is a token-holder's commission. Psyborg's image and text are part of the wall's permanent public record.
OCT
THE HELPER BUG
Someone burns a wrapped V1. The helper contract asks the wrapper who owns a token that no longer exists, gets an exception, and takes the marketplace site down. Frank rewrites the helper and redeploys on 27 October. Nobody loses a punk.
2024
2024
THE OFFICIAL BOOK
CryptoPunks: Free to Claim is published by Phaidon, edited by Yuga Labs and Zak Group. The 800-page monograph documents every punk and the community around them. Psyborg's images and text are part of that record.
Phaidon ↗2025
02 MAR
A PUNK PAIR ON THE MOON
MoonMars lands 47 artworks at Mare Crisium, the first museum on the Moon. Among the payload: CryptoPunk #4706, the V1/V2 pair, credited to FrankNFT and DayJobPunks.
2025
LIFT
Snowfro releases LIFT (a self portrait), a fully on-chain Game Boy Advance-style game on Art Blocks. Psyborg is part of its cast of supporters.
Art Blocks ↗2026
NOW
THE CHAIN KEEPS THE RECEIPTS
The wrapper cannot be switched off, including by the people who wrote it. The marketplace has been retired and rebuilt with Rarible. The contract, the art, the arguments, and the lavender are still on-chain.
05
BEYOND
CULTURE LAYER
BEYOND
THE CHAIN.
Walls, rooms, books,
games and the Moon.
IRL // LONDON
THE GALLERY
Psyborg opened a gallery space in Brick Lane, London, with a ground floor built for curated NFT exhibitions and launch nights. The project stepped out of the browser and into a room.
Open the log ↗
COMMUNITY // CONTROL ROOM
THE DISCORD
Psyborg set up the Discord that became the project's control room. It started with roughly ten people, then became the place where the wrapper, the marketplace, the lavender vote, and the defence of the collection were organised.
Join the server ↗
STREET // BROOKLYN
THE WILLIAMSBURG WALL
On Masnah's three-storey wall at Grand and Roebling in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, each mural is a token-holder's commission. Psyborg's image and text went up on a brick: part flex, part permanent public record of the NFT boom.
Read The Verge ↗
PRINT // OFFICIAL MONOGRAPH
FREE TO CLAIM
The official CryptoPunks book, published by Phaidon and edited by Yuga Labs and Zak Group, documents all 10,000 punks and the community that formed around them. Psyborg's images and text are part of the archive.
Phaidon ↗
GAME // ART BLOCKS
LIFT
Snowfro's LIFT (a self portrait) is a fully on-chain Game Boy Advance-style game, generated as a playable ROM. It takes up to 90 days to finish, and Psyborg is in the cast.
Play / view ↗
LUNAR // PAYLOAD
THE MOON MISSION
Frank's MoonMars project sent CryptoPunk #4706, the V1/V2 pair, to the surface of the Moon. It landed at Mare Crisium on 2 March 2025, inside the first museum on the Moon. DayJobPunks holders hold commercial rights to the first community-owned V1/V2 pair.
DJP
THE DAYJOB LINK
FOLLOW DJP↗
DayJobPunks is the community that owns the pair. Their holders carry commercial rights to the first community-owned CryptoPunks V1/V2 pair, the same #4706 that is now sitting on the Moon.
06
GO TO
ARTIFACT INDEX
GO TO
THE SOURCE.
Contracts, markets,
archives, people.
01
MARKETPLACES
PRIMARY
OpenSea
Official V1 Punks (wrapped)
↗ ETHLooksRare
Collection market
↗ ETHRarible
Community marketplace partner
↗ PROBlur
Pro trading
↗ ZERO FEECryptoPunks.com
Zero-fee V1 market
↗ 3DOnCyber
Cryptopunks pairs gallery
↗ PRIVATEv1punks.io
Private marketplace
↗ LEGACYLegacy Market
Zero-fee marketplace
↗ UNWRAPPEDPunks Market
Unwrapped marketplace
↗02
CONTRACTS
03
ARCHIVE & SOCIAL
07
NOT A
BUILD CREDITS
NOT A
SOLO RUN.
The people who
made the signal travel.
FRANK PONCELET
FRANKNFT.ETH // ENGINEER
Wrote the wrapper, marketplace, and helper contracts over the Christmas holiday. Based the wrapper on 0xfoobar's earlier work, kept the art untouched, and made the lavender layer the standard.
FCC
FCCVIEW // COMMUNITY BOT
Built the official Discord and Twitter bot for the V1 community: the plumbing that kept a fast-moving server readable and a sales feed alive.
IRISHNFTGAL
NIAMH // COMMUNITY ADMIN
Community admin in the early V1 days. Helped hold the server together and carried the story into the press when the Larva Labs dispute went public.
SIMON
STIJN VAN RAES // FRONT END
We Are Dorkis co-founder and OG Solidity developer. Built the V1 marketplace front end from Frank's instructions, turning the contracts into something people could actually use.
PSYBORG
ORIGINAL CLAIMANT // INSTIGATOR
Held 83 V1s, set up the Discord, asked Frank to build the wrapper, and put a punk on the table at 1,000 ETH. This archive is the long version of that story.
END OF TRANSMISSION
THE CONTRACT
DOESN'T END.
No ending, because the chain does not provide one. It just has a next block.
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