Let's Talk Some CryptoPunk Strategy

I was lucky enough to get my hand on a few punks on Hive, the generative NFT event launched a couple a weeks ago. As the dust settled over the minting page, all the attention move to the other place: the punks secondary market. I guess I could just name it simply "market", but because there was a first minting event, it just came more natural to call it "secondary".

If you don't know yet, you can put your punk on sale. Some pretty neat deals came through in the last few days, the biggest one being the acquisition of a punk fo 3500 HIVE (by @yabapmatt, if I'm not mistaken). I think that also coincided with HIVE trading above $3, so that netted $10k. Not bad for JPEG, right? (I'm kidding, I know very well they're not just JPEGs).

As I was watching the market, I decided to try a little bit of a strategy. It's clear we are very, very early, and there aren't too many buyers (yet). But a few trends can emerge even in a relatively small market (I say relatively because, again, on this market someone cashed in $10k already on a single sale).

Here's what I saw in terms of general trends:

• the rarity seems to be more often than not the price. For example, If a punk has a 259 rarity, the price is usually 259 HIVE.
• for higher rarity, sometimes the price is 25-30% lower. For example, a punk with a 5500 rarity, may be seen for a price around 3500 HIVE
• lower rarity punks are more liquid (understandably, because they are cheaper)
• lower rarity punks can sometimes be traded at 50% less than their price. For instance, a punk with 80 rarity can be sold with 40 HIVE.
• during the last bull run, which is still cooling down, price went down on a few items drastically, which means people wanted to cash in

It looks like the market organized in a few layers:

• under 100 rarity, price is usually less than rarity, sometimes by 50-60%, very liquid, many sales
• between 100 and 200, price is usually rarity, somehow liquid, definitely less sales than in the layer above
• between 200 and 400 price can swing either way, sometimes double or triple the rarity, not liquid (not too many sales, but reward significantly higher)
• between 400 and 1000, price is even more random, again not very liquid, but we're talking deals between $1k and $2-$4k
• over 1000 is the dreamland, if you have one of those, I would keep it, because it seems they are in high demand, and they may appreciate. We're talking deals over $10k.

Here is my strategy (yes, I'm putting on market some of my punks):

Punk	Rarity	Price
	96	100
	97	100
	103	103
	104	104
	107	107
	109	109
	112	112
	114	114
	116	116
	118	118
	131	131
	161	161
	189	189
	197	197
	197	197
	216	600
	225	600
	251	600
	478	not listed
	491	not listed
	878	not listed

In short:

• any rarity under 100 is treated as 100
• above 200 and below 400 I'm betting on a 300% price increase. I just believe that layer will be the most liquid and interesting in a few months, just a hunch.
• I'm not putting any of the punks over 400 on sale just yet.

So far I didn't make any sale - and it's very possible not to make one, as I know the strategy is skewed towards expensive. I'll just keep it for a while.

I just put everything here so I can have where to come back and see how it all went.