It would seem that the money-making days for CryptoPunks, one of the oldest and most valuable NFT brands, are well and truly over. After acquiring the non-fungible token collection from Larva Labs in 2022, Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs is now selling CryptoPunks to Infinite Node Foundation — a non-profit focused on preserving digital art.

CryptoPunks, alongside brands like Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoKitties, is frequently credited for kicking off the NFT craze in 2021. Several tokens have been sold for millions, including one in 2022 that was purchased for more than $23 million worth of Ethereum cryptocurrency, but the sales charts have largely stagnated since. 

Details for the purchase are slim. CryptoPunks general manager Natalie Stone told The Verge that the terms of the deal won’t be disclosed, and that the brand will be stewarded by the Node Foundation, with no plans to integrate the CryptoPunks token collection into the gamified Otherside metaverse that Yuga Labs is developing. “Yuga is still one of the biggest holders of Punks, and like all other CryptoPunks NFT holders, will retain the right to its CryptoPunks characters under the IP license,” said Stone.

It was also never clear how much Yuga Labs spent to acquire CryptoPunks in its heyday, but being sold to a non-profit is probably not a good sign for, well, profitability. Now that NFT’s are a shambling shadow of their former glory, the focus is turning to making CryptoPunks relevant in the mainstream art industry.

“We’ve worked to elevate and protect their legacy, but we always knew Punks needed a permanent home built for preservation,” Yuga Labs co-founder Wylie Aronow said in the announcement release. “Seeing that vision come to life with the Node Foundation feels like a full-circle moment. They are best positioned to protect the Punks legacy.”

Node Foundation chair Micky Malka said that “CryptoPunks sparked a cultural movement,” and that the non-profit intends to “future-proof this landmark work” and make it more accessible for scholars, curators, and collectors to engage with. Node is planning to showcase all 10,000 CryptoPunks tokens at the foundation’s permanent exhibition space in Palo Alto, and in the “Infinite Images: The Art of Algorithms” exhibit at the Toledo Museum of Art.