Yuga Labs, the digital asset incubation studio and the team behind the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club non-fungible token collections, has finally sold the intellectual property (IP) for the CryptoPunks NFT collection to Infinite Node Foundation (NODE), a non-profit focused on digital art. The digital asset firm, which acquired Punks IP in 2022, announced the sale in a May 13 blog post.
The Infinite Node Foundation (NODE) is pleased to announce the acquisition of the intellectual property of @cryptopunksnfts from @yugalabs.
Launched by Larva Labs in 2017, CryptoPunks are widely regarded as the catalyst for the modern digital art movement. Their $3.07B in sales… pic.twitter.com/RQ6apT8A3o
— NODE (@nodefnd) May 13, 2025
The non-profit firm said it has assembled an advisory board to oversee the CryptoPunks NFT collection. The board comprises Matt Hall and John Watkinson, the artists behind the NFT collection, and a representative of Yuga Labs, among others. “Our role is to build a networked architecture that allows digital art like CryptoPunks to thrive within both digital and art-historical canons,” the non-profit firm added.
The non-profit firm also announced that it has received a $25 million endowment to support its work in preserving and promoting digital art. With the addition of CryptoPunks IP and the endowment, NODE is now "the most well-capitalized non-profit dedicated solely to digital art in the United States of America."
Rumors about the Punks IP sales began circulating in January 2025. At the time, many crypto users began speculating about which firm could be buying the Punks IP. Some of the names that came up in the rumors included HiFo Labs, the creator of the Nakamogos NFT series. Following those rumors, the CryptoPunks NFT sales volume soared by +500% to reach over $3 million, making it the most-売れる NFT collection.
The non-fungible token collection was launched in 2017 by the digital asset firm Larva Labs. It features a limited edition of 10,000 pixelated NFTs hosted on the Ethereum blockchain network. The non-fungible token collection has since grown to become one of the leading NFT collections in the NFT market, holding a market capitalization of nearly $1 billion. Several rare Punks from the non-fungible token collection are worth millions of dollars.
In March 2022, Yuga Labs, the creator of the globally acknowledged Bored Ape Yacht Club non-fungible token collection, acquired the intellectual property of the CryptoPunks non-fungible token collection. During the auction, the Bored Ape creator bought the Meebits NFT collection along with the CryptoPunks NFT IP. Meebits is a non-fungible token collection featuring a fixed set of 20,000 3D voxel characters hosted on the Ethereum blockchain network.
Yuga Labs is home to some of the leading NFT collections in the global NFT market, including the Mutant Ape Yacht Club, a non-fungible token collection featuring a limited supply of 20,000 NFTs hosted on the Ethereum blockchain network, Otherside, Kodamara, Bored Ape Kennel Club, and Twelvefold. The Bored Ape Yacht creator, Yuga Labs, also holds intellectual property (IP) for the Moonbird Oddities, Grails, and Emotes NFT collections.
