One of the largest art sales in history may have just taken place, CryptoPunk #9888 sold for $530 Million.
Although, this is no more than just an elaborate hoax. See it is hard to trick people when you buy your own artwork, especially on a public blockchain.
A Twitter bot tracking the sales of every CryptoPunk tweeted this on Thursday night shortly after 8 pm.
You may wonder “What makes this NFT worth half a billion dollars?” and the truth is, not much actually.
Using Rarity ranks its Rarity Score at a mere 136.49, compared to Punk #7804 which actually sold for $7.57M and has a rarity score of 2329.18.
Due to the fact this punk lacks desirable features from a collectors perspective, it quickly attracted attention to how it could sell for this sum of money.
A look at the Ethereum Blockchain Ledger shows that it was nothing more than smart, smart contract trickery.
Why Would You Buy Your Own NFT?
The purchase was made using a flash loan contract, essentially this is a loan that is repaid immediately.
The owner of this Punk bought his own Cryptopunk and instantly paid back his loan, using smart arbitrage he bought millions of eyes onto his NFT for only $800 in Ethereum Gas Fees.
Is this purely genius marketing to a not so spectacular Cryptopunk?
