Most Expensive Cryptopunk

The NFT art sector is becoming more and more absurd. A deal about a short-term loan was once again manipulated. A cryptopunk was sold for half a billion dollars, in crypto money, of course. Many are wondering how this could have happened, writes the networks. This Cryptopunk would have been the most expensive NFT of all time in one fell swoop, even eclipsing record holder at 70 million. But it wasn’t an actual deal, the transaction was invalid, as the networks announced. So the sale was declared illegal by the creators of the Cryptopunks. As it quickly turned out, the seller and the buyer were the same person.

In financial terms, this is also called a wash trade. It is used to raise a price. In itself nothing new. But how the purchase was made, yes. The massive sum for the transaction was provided through a loan. This is an unsecured loan that is becoming increasingly well known in the world of decentralized finance, also known as DeFi. With DeFi, liquidity is provided for a transfer using the blockchain and stored with a smart deal. So, what happened when the cryptopunk was bought: the buyer borrowed the money, constructed a transaction using the NFT, and when the smart deal discovered that the money wasn’t returned, the transaction was reversed.

Of the 10,000 available NFTs from the selection, there are only nine aliens. The recently acquired CryptoPunk also belongs to this section. Does the rare feature justify the price of 8,000 ETH? The CryptoPunks selection is one of the most successful NFT sections ever and boasts some prominent owners.

Publicity Stunt Suspected Behind Transaction

Flash loans are a model of lending business. Funds are borrowed, used and paid back as part of a smart deal in the same transaction. Flash loans make it possible to borrow large amounts of cryptocurrency provided that all smart deal procedures are met.The background to this rather unusual transaction is not clear – but it is suspected to be a publicity stunt so that the owner can increase the price of the CryptoPunk.