BAYC Developer Yuga Labs Contributed NFT CryptoPunk To The Institute Of Contemporary Art

NFT CryptoPunk #305 display on OpenSea. (Photo; Doc. OpenSea)

JAKARTA Yuga Labs is the developer of the popular NFT Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) project with ape themes. Recently, Yuga Labs reportedly donated one of the company's NFT collections to the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) which is located in Miami. Interestingly, the NFT that was donated was not NFT BAYC but NFT CryptoPunk numbered #305.

The NFT CryptoPunk #305 features a pixel image of a hunting woman wearing a Virtual Reality headset. The NFT CryptoPunk collection consists of only 10,000 NFTs. For information, CryptoPunk #305 was obtained by Yuga Labs from CryptoPunks developer Larva Labs.

Last week, CryptoPunks surpassed BAYC as the most popular and most expensive $ million NFT. The cheapest NFT is priced at US $80,000.

According to a Fortune report, Yuga's donation to ICA Miami was the first in the Punks Heritage Project, which aims to donate and install several other CryptoPunk in contemporary art museums around the world. The company will also offer museum resources related to Web3 education, crypto art history, crypto security, and NFT best practices, according to a statement published Tuesday, November 22.

"Just like how Jeff Koons and Andy Warhol are pushing for the revival of contemporary art, I hope CryptoPunks can lead the payload for NFT," said CryptoPunk, Noah Davis.

NFT's digital art has seen an increase in popularity in recent years. One of the life legends of NFT creator Mike Winkelmann alias Beeple managed to auction off one of his works worth 69 million US dollars at the leading auction house, Christie, in 2021.

ICA Miami was the first museum to enter NFT into its collection list. ICA also previously received NFT CryptoPunk #5293 from one of the investors. The NFT collection will be visible to visitors until the end of 2022.

"The ICA Miami collection reflects the art and ideas that determine our current moments and drive cultural conversations forward," said Alex Gartenfeld, ICA's artistic director Miami.