On Tuesday night in midtown Manhattan, the cultural elite of the cryptocurrency world celebrated the conquest of yet another corner of the luxury market, enjoying sparkling wine and small bites at Swarovski’s glittering flagship store on Fifth Avenue. They gathered to launch a new line of algorithmically designed, Ethereum NFT-paired, and NFC-chipped custom hoodies, created by a dizzying web of collaborators.
The 322 one-of-a-kind clothing pieces constituted the second collection from mmERCH, a tech-focused luxury fashion brand, inspired by the CryptoPunk owned by Punk-themed DJ Danny Maegaard, also known as Seedphrase. Each piece came with NFTs created by the prominent AI-wielding digital artist Claire Silver, and in a few select cases, featured Swarovski crystal cord ends. Five of those bejeweled hoodies were to be sold by Christie’s, the storied auction house.
During a panel conversation among the creators, one key ingredient kept emerging: CryptoPunks, the “blue chip” NFT collection that served as the anchoring theme of the hoodie line, and the connection between Maegaard and Silver, both holders of CryptoPunks. “CryptoPunks are the quiet luxury brand of the Web3 space,” Colby Mugrabi, the founder of mmERCH, stated during the panel, prompting many nods of agreement.
At this juncture, CryptoPunks may not only be a mainstay of crypto’s “quiet luxury”; one could argue that the collection is the only crypto-native brand of any kind that has managed to meaningfully infiltrate the rarified upper echelons of the luxury industry. Nicole Sales Giles, head of Christie’s digital art team, informed Decrypt that the CryptoPunks brand has succeeded in embedding itself in the luxury world in a way that other crypto brands have not. “It’s respected,” she remarked. “Even some of [crypto’s] more historical projects haven’t really had the brand continuity or longevity that Punks has.”
CryptoPunks have adorned the walls of some of the world’s most prominent art museums and even featured in a collaboration with the luxury giant Tiffany & Co. While other once-hot NFT brands like Bored Ape Yacht Club have seen their value plummet by approximately 93% since 2022, CryptoPunks have continued to command multi-million dollar sums.
For Seedphrase, whose notable Punk inspired the hoodie collection—and whose DJ career is also intertwined with the NFT project—the distinction of CryptoPunks lies in the project’s organic origins. The 10,000-piece collection was initially minted for free in 2017 and has managed to maintain cultural relevance since then without the involvement of a creative team. “CryptoPunks never promised anything,” Seedphrase told Decrypt. “In contrast, with Bored Apes, to sustain that floor price, Yuga Labs was constantly dropping tokens or coins, or trying to incentivize the community to buy more Apes.”
Seedphrase believes that now, years later, artists, collectors, and luxury brands have gravitated towards CryptoPunks because the collection stands as one of the few remaining symbols of the organic community that once characterized crypto in its infancy. “People choose Punks for the right reasons,” he continued. “That is a more genuine and organic message than what other collections have tried to imitate.” (It is worth noting that the CryptoPunks IP was purchased by Bored Ape creator Yuga Labs in 2022.)
The first five hoodies in the collection—the “ultra luxe” pieces with Swarovski cord ends set in either sterling silver or 14-karat gold—went on auction at Christie’s on Wednesday. Each of these also comes with a unique, one-of-a-kind NFT artwork from Claire Silver, as opposed to an edition work. The rarest of those hoodies, one with cords also studded with Swarovski diamonds, has already received a bid of $8,500. The auction closes on October 1.
On the same day, the allowlist mint for the remaining 317 hoodies will open for exactly 24 hours, exclusively for holders of mmERCH genesis hoodies and CryptoPunk holders. The pieces will cost 0.269 ETH (about $693 at the time of writing) for allowlist members; the sale will then open to the public on October 2nd, for 0.317 ETH (currently worth $817) per hoodie. The hoodies will be randomly distributed to minters, each featuring different attributes. Only 17 of these pieces will feature Swarovski crystal ends, and one will also include Swarovski diamond-studded cords.
Colby Mugrabi of mmERCH, who comes from a traditional fashion background, anticipates that the collection will appeal to both crypto-native collectors and traditional fashion consumers. Christie’s Sales Giles concurs, noting that in the past year, digital art and fashion collections attempting to capitalize on loyal crypto audiences have faded away, leaving behind what she considers a mature field of works more likely to be embraced by traditional luxury. “There’s more elevated projects coming out,” Sales Giles remarked. “There’s not a rush to get to all your Twitter followers. That’s been a really welcome change.”
Edited by Andrew Hayward