Arthur Hayes Bets Big: Why CryptoPunks Will Crush Ethereum’s Rally in 2025

Crypto's bad boy Arthur Hayes just doubled down on his wildest prediction yet—Punks outpacing ETH's bull run. Again.

Here's why the market's listening.

The NFT King's Gambit

Hayes—never one for subtlety—is staking his reputation on Punks' 'generational alpha' while ETH maximalists foam at the mouth. His thesis? Scarcity beats utility when degens rule the markets.

Blue-Chip JPEGs vs. The World Computer

Forget gas fees and DeFi yields. The real action's in 24x24 pixel art that somehow justifies seven-figure price tags. Meanwhile, Ethereum's actual users are busy calculating validator ROI... down to three decimal places.

The Punchline?

In a market where money printer go brrr meets greater fool theory, maybe the real smart contract was the JPEGs we overpaid for along the way.

More than half of Sunday’s volume came from CryptoPunks.app. In the past week alone, 174 Punks have changed hands, a 460% increase in weekly sales. The floor price jumped 20% to 48 ETH (worth $177,000). This was supported by ETH’s 25% price surge over the last week.

But some of the current buying frenzy has no ties to marketing or new incentives. It appears to be a pure play on culture and crypto-native prestige.

Ethereum price surged by more than 63% over the last 30 days. With the recent dump, ETH is trading at an average price of $3,675 at press time.

CryptoPunks see 8,000% volume spike

On July 21, a single whale scooped 45 CryptoPunks on OpenSea. It spent 2,082 ETH and sent the floor price soaring. Nansen data shows the whale’s wallet was newly created on July 18. It had no previous trading history and was funded via a deep-pocketed exchange address. This suggests either a new institutional buyer or an anonymous high-net-worth entity entering the space.

Reports show that 76 Punks were swept in the same window. In just 24 hours, the collection clocked over 6,373 ETH in volume, which is an 8,000% surge. A total of 135 Punks were sold in a single day, and this level of activity has not been seen since the NFT mania of 2021.

Largest CryptoPunks NFT sales. Source: CryptoPunks

Other major Ethereum-based collections are riding the wave too. Pudgy Penguins floor prices climbed 38% to $56,000, Mutant Apes jumped 26% to $6,300, and Fidenza NFTs saw a 64% surge.

CryptoPunks data shows that the lowest priced Punk available costs around 48 ETH (worth $175K). There have been 2,156 sales over the last 12 months. However, total sales to date stood at 1.22 million ($3.13 billion), and around $3.35 million in the last 24 hours. Last week’s sales breached the $22 million mark.

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