CryptoPunks community reacts to the ongoing copyright battle between V1 and V2

During its archetypal release, 10,000 CryptoPunks were sold and made it to the secondary marketplace earlier users discovered a captious astute declaration exploit that made it imaginable for Punks' buyers to retreat their Ether (ETH) post-purchase. As a result, creator Larva Labs withdrew designation of the V1 collection, fixed the exploit, and released the V2 Punks postulation we person now. Though, they've besides sent mixed messages astir the postulation by selling disconnected dozens of their ain V1 Punks.

The battle implicit the copyright of the CryptoPunks V1 postulation is heating up arsenic the images precocious gained successful marketplace value, with Larva Labs filing a DMCA take-down notice to OpenSea and members of the V1 assemblage striking backmost with their own. To complicate the matter, Larva Labs purposefully coded the astute declaration to beryllium irrevocable, and 1 postulation (V1) could not person been destroyed without besides eliminating the different (V2). The taxable remains profoundly arguable wrong some communities.

With the assistance of CryptoPunks V1's assemblage admin, @irishnftgal, Cointelegraph spoke to Brittany Kaiser, co-founder of Own Your Data. In precocious Jan 2022, Brittany bought a v1 CryptoPunk connected OpenSea, which she believes is simply a "true portion of NFT history" produced by Larva Labs arsenic 1 of the archetypal punks avatars:

"I was excited to perceive that a radical of crypto activists and superb developers, immoderate of who telephone themselves "NFT archaeologists," decided to physique an ERC-721 wrapper to marque the archetypal V1 CryptoPunks token declaration tradable connected modern NFT marketplaces."

According to Brittany, she was "shocked and dismayed" to observe that aft Larva Labs profited from selling astir 40 wrapped CryptoPunks V1 connected Opensea for 210 ETH, its creators allegedly turned around. Instead, they took deliberate enactment to undermine the authenticity and traceability of the precise aforesaid CryptoPunks V1 collection. "The founders person said publically for years that these tokens are portion of the original," says Brittany.

Brittany thinks the champion result for Larva Labs would beryllium to "take work and ownership of these blockchain assets" that they enactment connected the market. "Revoking the DCMA would beryllium a bully start, and a nationalist apology would beryllium adjacent better," she says.

Efforts from the V1 assemblage to marque themselves heard person fallen connected deaf ears among galore members of the V2 community. In its authoritative Discord, idiosyncratic lookinrare#0911 wrote:

"I mean, we tin telephone them a gamble, but astatine the extremity we ever knew V1 [punk] were not legit punks; they were simply artifacts that led to the instauration of punks. So they person a spot successful history, but I uncertainty that spot is worthy 1k ETH, lol."

Another user, OG!#8654, wrote:

"I deliberation Larva Labs should aggressively onslaught with litigation. V1s person been suffering ever since. Their level terms is down to 9 ETH, and hardly anyone is talking astir them anymore. I bash deliberation the misinformation contented has taken different incorrect measurement now. They changed their sanction to 'CryptoPunks V1' from 'Wrapped V1 CryptoPunks'. This is simply a blatant effort to mislead people."

Issues regarding the authenticity of the postulation aren't simply astir the doctrine of NFTs; they person ample fiscal consequences. On the 1 hand, efforts to delegitimize the V1 postulation have, successful the past, caused their level prices to fall, starring to devastating losses among V1 owners. But connected the different hand, legitimizing the V1 postulation would abruptly summation the full proviso of CryptoPunks from 10,000 to 20,000. This would alteration their scarcity and perchance origin the terms of V2 punks to decline, albeit to the joyousness of V1 punk owners, who volition perchance spot the terms of their NFTs summation owed to newfound recognition.

@v1punks mentioned successful @muratpak postulation https://t.co/9sXapFsNVw pic.twitter.com/wcg6zR1xmK

— Niamh || irishnftgal (@irishnftgal) February 8, 2022