According to several reports published last month, Sotheby’s auction house has been getting ready to organize the Punk It! Sale. The sale would have seen 104 CryptoPunk NFTs launched for purchase on the 18th of February 2022.
However, even with the solid plans and programs set in place, the community and hopeful buyers were left in awe as the sale was canceled at the last minute. The entire Punk It sale was eventually canceled because the sole owner of the digital assets decided not to proceed as planned.
The announcement about the self-described rugging took place on Twitter as the pseudonymous collector 0x650d nonchalantly made a tweet about the project. The collector, in response to the initial “Punk It!” tweet, tweeted “never mind, decided to hold”. The tweet was accompanied by a contextualized version of the popular Drake meme, making fun of the chaos they created.
In response to the whole mess created by the collector, Farokh, the founder of RugRadio, called out the sole Punk owner. In his words “Bro, stop behaving like you rugged Sotheby’s, you surely made the community and potential buyers look stupid. Right now the press and everyone else is laughing at us so stop hiding the shame and guilt by posting stupid memes”
However, the major reason why 0x650d decided to pull out in the last minute of the massive Punk offering still remains unknown. However, the collector made a tweet (which has now been deleted) announcing that “who’s stupid enough to pay a premium for an auction house”. And while this is vague, many think it holds a lot of explanatory value
However, regardless of their reasoning, a lot of people believe that 0x650d’s behavior before the pullout was offensive and seems like pure trolling. And no doubt, a lot of people were offended by such behavior. Furthermore, considering that no repercussions or punishment can be metered to the collector for such behavior, this proves to be one of the chaotic nature of the current NFT culture.
Frankly, many believe that an atrocity of this kind would never happen in the conventional auction system. Be that as it may, the Punk It! rug pull is a surly reminder as to the dangers that exist in the NFT ecosystem and the crypto industry in general.
Presently, 0x650d crypto wallet stores about 135 NFTs from 18 distinct NFT collections.
