We’ve been Punk’d

How did we let traditional institutions into our metaverse? How did we let Sotheby’s and Christie's auction off our Cryptopunks in closed rooms and suits? Applauding them while watching them take their 15%. We’ve been Punk’d. We have the most powerful technology in the world and it’s been there the whole time—Ethereum.

Punk House is a public and permissionless auction house for Cryptopunks, that allows any owner to list their Cryptopunk for a reserve-timed auction. Reserve prices mean that owners won’t get caught out with a low floor. When a reserve price is hit, a 24 hour countdown starts on an auction that’s available to the entire internet. Any bids in the final 15 minutes will extend the auction by 15 minutes. The highest bidder wins. What’s more punk than listing your Cryptopunk on a permissionless auction house?

Because these auctions are entirely onchain, it means that there is an entirely new type of bidder—Partybids. Anyone can come together to pool their Ether to jointly buy a Cryptopunk. You’ll be able to own part of a punk for $100 instead of needing $100,000 in spare change. Instead of DAOs trying to buy all Punks, every Punk can be a DAO.

This is all built on ZORA. You can see the inner workings of the smart contract code on Etherscan, and you’ll quickly notice that it was deployed with no admin control and is entirely free—0% forever. It can never be stopped, and it serves as permissionless and public infrastructure that will last as long as your Cryptopunks.