The project was launched in June 2017 by the Larva Labs studio,[1] a two-person team consisting of Canadian software developers Matt Hall and John Watkinson.

CryptoPunks are commonly credited with starting the NFT craze of 2021, along with other early projects including CryptoKitties, Bored Ape Yacht Club, and the sale of Beeple's Everydays: The First 5000 Days.

[6] On March 11, 2022 it was announced that all of the CryptoPunks IP was acquired by Yuga Labs (parent company and creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club project) for an undisclosed sum.

They were originally released for free and could be claimed by anyone with an Ethereum wallet by paying only "gas fees", which were low at the time.

Larva Labs said that the purchase was made with a flash loan where the NFT's owner bought the item from themselves with borrowed money, taking out and repaying the loan within a single blockchain transaction,[13] subsequently invalidating the sale from the asset's historic and from all the related statistics.