Tiffany & Co. launched and quickly sold out a limited collection of 250 custom jewel-encrusted pendants for CryptoPunks holders, a popular early non-fungible token collection.

CryptoPunks was founded in 2017 and is made up of 10,000 unique 8-bit-style generated characters that are stored on the Ethereum blockchain. In an interview with CNN, Noah Davis, CryptoPunks' new brand lead and former head of digital sales at Christie's, described the collection as "essentially the cave paintings of Web3 art." "We're talking about the first successful and long-lasting community-based NFT project."

According to their website and Twitter, Tiffany sold 250 "NFTiffs," digital passes that can be minted and redeemed for custom-designed CryptoPunks pendants and a matching NFT art piece. Customers could only purchase an NFT if they already owned a CryptoPunk.

Tiffany designers will create a custom pendant based on the buyer's CryptoPunk for each NFTiff purchased. Each CryptoPunk has a one-of-a-kind combination of 87 attributes, such as a medical mask, hat, or earring, and 159 colors, which are reflected in the pendant. Tiffany stated that each piece will be made of 18-karat gold and will include at least 30 gemstones and/or diamonds.

Each NFTiff, which grants access to a pendant and a matching NFT digital rendering, costs 30 ETH, or roughly $50,000.

According to Davis, CryptoPunks' brand lead, the Tiffany pendants are just one iteration of possible projects linked to NFTs.
"Owning an NFT means you own a blockchain entry," Davis explained. "It's an indelible entry that can never be fraudulently modified, faked, copied, or destroyed; it's there forever. Owning an NFT is a really powerful thing in the digital era."

Yuga Labs, the parent company of another well-known early NFT project, Bored Ape Yacht Club, acquired all intellectual property (IP) for CryptoPunks in March and announced plans to grant all CryptoPunk holders commercial rights. It paved the way for projects such as the Tiffany pendants. "Owning a token does not imply that this JPEG is yours," Davis explained. "It means you have certain rights in terms of what you can do with your CryptoPunk and what kind of IP you can build around it, with very few restrictions."

According to Davis, the Tiffany pendants "perfectly illustrate the license that's coming out." "In this case, Cryptopunk owners are essentially commissioning Tiffany's to create new IP out of their Cryptopunk, which is a pendant. To own the IP for the pendant, you must first own the CryptoPunk."

The project also represents the growing integration of luxury brands, cryptocurrency, and NFTs. NFTs have sold for exorbitant prices at historic auction houses such as Christie's and Sotheby's. Gucci also announced plans in May to allow customers to pay for purchases using Bitcoin and several other cryptocurrencies.

"If we are entering an era where the virtual world will become more important and essential to our lived experience, owning virtual goods will become that much more valuable," Davis predicted. "It's brilliant and makes perfect sense for these luxury companies to enter the space now, when we're really still early."

Davis told CNN that he hopes that the release of commercial rights for CryptoPunk holders will result in more unique community-driven projects, as NFT holders use their IP as the foundation for their own ventures.

"The utility for CryptoPunks is the community," he added. "There's no need to add any more because the incredible utility that already exists is its community members. Finding ways to amplify those voices, provide more networking opportunities, and really just keep Punks punk -- that's the goal."