A rare Cryptopunk NFT was given away for free with support from Felt Zine and the decentralized NFT community.

Curators of culture are quickly becoming a key component of the reorganization and value of digital culture in the era of Web 3.0. What’s better than buying a Cryptopunk? You’ll be able to share it with your friends. Anon Collector EL and FELT Zine, an experimental internet art collective (creators of the world’s first digital NFT Zine), recently gave away nearly 25% of a Cryptopunk to over 400 supporters via a free airdrop to digital internet communities that support their work.

Splitting artworks is now a thing.

“We believe that shared ownership allows people to feel more connected to one another,” says El, an anonymous collector. “Because we should all be able to participate in a movement regardless of our financial situation.” Because setting and achieving common goals should be rewarded with equity. Because you put your ETH on the line to bid, and you should be compensated for it.”

The power of digital collective bidding inspired Felt Zine to create a brand new cultural distribution model for curatorial impact by rewarding supporters with a risk-free Cryptopunk for first supporting two other crowdfunded Cryptopunk sales that were fractionally owned by an internet community.

This Rare Cryptopunk (Punk#8726) is Being Given Away for Free! 🔥🔥🔥

So @FeltZine announced that every participant in this month’s HOUSE OF $TIARA and HOUSE OF $HALLE auctions have received an airdrop share of a FREE Cryptopunk, punk#8726! Her name is $LUPE.

Peep ur wallet! 💳 pic.twitter.com/9mUlu6yF2x

— Dev (@DevMoore) August 13, 2021

Cryptopunks, a set of 10,000 randomly generated characters on the Ethereum blockchain, is quickly becoming one of the most valuable digital collections ever. These are the rare works of art emerging from the depths of underground digital art culture that are out of reach for the average crypto trader/enthusiast. What is the solution?

Cryptopunk #8726, also known as $LUPE, had a simple plan. Fractionalize and immediately airdrop 22.5 percent of the supply back to the GratefulDAO community.

“I’d rather be broke together than rich alone,’ Jadakiss said. Now we can have both.” — said Mark Sabb, Felt Zine’s CEO and Founder.

Fractionalized art, or the concept of collectively owning shares of a single digital NFT artwork, is on the rise and presenting a fresh new lane for the average crypto art collector that isn’t immensely rich, a whale billionaire, or traditionally equivalent to the collective buying power of a powerhouse collector akin to Peggy Guggenheim or Charles Saatchi.

Crowdfunded CryptoPunks are possible using PartyBid, an Ethereum-based protocol that lowers the barrier to this kind of coordination by allowing the everyday individual to own a fraction of an NFT with a party, or group of friends, while later exchanging any tokens for ETH upon a future sale. PartyBid is primarily used for NFT collective bidding. Anyone can create or join a PartyBid, trustlessly pool funds with friends, place bids on auctions, and have fun.

“With PartyBid, social influence can be leveraged to outperform raw capital,” says Anna Scarroll, protocol engineer at PartyDAO. “Together, a million minnows can eat a whale.”

PartyBid limits contributions to ETH. Anyone who sends ETH to a party that wins a bid will receive ERC-20 tokens representing the NFT and proportional to their contribution. If users’ ETH isn’t spent on the winning bid, or the party doesn’t win the auction, users can reclaim their contribution, minus gas fees.

After the sales of $Tiara and $Halle, anon collector El obtained an entirely different crypto punk ($Lupe), applied a reserve price of 65 ETH, and Tiara/Halle supporters received a proportional share of the 22.5 percent in the form of an airdrop. These new Lupe tokens were sent to any address that sent a Contribute transaction to the two previously crowdfunded Cryptopunks named Tiara and Halle. Halle? Tiara? Lupe?? After a successful auction, parties will often give their illustrious punks culturally significant names like $Tiara, $Halle, or even $Lupe. The names primarily derived from a viral conversation from mixed media crypto artist Sirsu in which they wanted to obtain crypto punks that have been susceptible to the “historically low price floor for punks with Black and Brown features.” This concept aims to increase access to high-value cultural artifacts and present new opportunities for wealth creation, all while reclaiming (at least temporarily) a culture’s digital and social identities.

The rise of shared value and “implied value” on cultural artifacts, rare digital artworks, and crypto collectible sets is one of the strongest drivers of change in crypto. We’re quickly witnessing the rise of fractionalized tokens model distribution. “Obsession with JPEGs is an easy way to miss the forest for the trees,” Qiao Wang said. The tokenization of communities in the forest here.”

Also, read – How to develop blockchain investment with NFT Market

What happened next?

As expected, CryptoPunk sales surged in the following weeks following news that financial conglomerate Visa purchased an in-demand Cryptopunk NFT. Punks had a daily trading volume of $70 million, and the floor price for one punk was more than 90 ETH (around $300,000 at the time).

The final 20 minutes of the auction brought nearly 15 bids, far exceeding the current floor price of 150 ETH, as the punk sat on Fractional.art. In this decentralized protocol, NFT owners can mint tokenized fractional ownership of their NFTs.

Following the auction, many users could exchange their LUPE tokens (normal ERC20 tokens shared among a group of people, each token representing governance over the NFT) for ETH. The ability to freely navigate between various art collections and art communities while navigating each space in a collaborative effort that benefits all parties is a new type of digital movement that allows anyone in the world to share cultural values with a global community.

When the global underground art scenes of the world are finally able to decide, dictate, and ultimately select the cultural value of their time without the need for a VC-funded organization, outdated auction house, or the backing of a billion-dollar conglomerate decide which aspects of culture are valuable, the intersection of fractionalized art and accessible curatorial digital exploration comes together.