CryptoPunks community reacts to the ongoing copyright battle between v1 and v2
During its initial release, 10,000 CryptoPunks were sold and made it to the secondary market before users discovered a critical smart contract exploit that made it possible for Punks' buyers to withdraw their Ether (ETH) post-purchase. As a result, creator Larva Labs withdrew recognition of the v1 collection, fixed the exploit and released the v2 Punks collection we have now. Though, they've also sent mixed messages about the collection by selling off dozens of their own V1 Punks.
The battle over the copyright of the CryptoPunks v1 collection is heating up as the images recently gained in market value, with Larva Labs filing a DMCA take-down notice to OpenSea and members of the v1 community striking back with their own. To complicate the matter, Larva Labs purposefully coded the smart contract to be irrevocable, and one collection (v1) could not have been destroyed without also eliminating the other (v2). The topic remains deeply controversial within both communities.
With the help of CryptoPunks v1's community admin, @irishnftgal, Cointelegraph spoke to Brittany Kaiser, co-founder of Own Your Data. In late January 2022, Brittany bought a v1 CryptoPunk on OpenSea, which she believes is a "true piece of NFT history" produced by Larva Labs as one of the first punks avatars:
According to Brittany, she was "shocked and dismayed" to discover that after Larva Labs profited from selling about 40 wrapped CryptoPunks v1 on Opensea for 210 ETH, its creators allegedly turned around. Instead, they took deliberate action to undermine the authenticity and traceability of the very same CryptoPunks 1 collection. "The founders have said publicly for years that these tokens are part of the original," says Brittany.
Brittany thinks the best
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