Tiffany’s debuts crypto-inspired NFT pendants for $50,000 each

by · August 6, 2022

Written by By Zoe Sottile, CNN

On Friday, Tiffany & Co debuted and quickly sold out a limited collection of 250 custom jeweled pendants for holders of CryptoPunks, a popular early non-fungible token collection.

Launched in 2017, CryptoPunks consists of 10,000 unique 8-bit generated characters stored on the Ethereum blockchain. The collection is “essentially the cave paintings of Web3 art,” Noah Davis, CryptoPunks’ new brand manager and former head of digital sales at Christie’s, said in an interview with CNN. “We’re talking about the earliest successful, and durable enough, community-based NFT project.”

Tiffany sold 250 “NFTiffs,” digital passports that can be embossed and redeemed for specially designed CryptoPunks pendants and a matching piece of NFT artwork, according to its website and Twitter. In order to buy an NFT, customers had to already own their own CryptoPunk.

For every NFTiff purchased, Tiffany designers will create a custom pendant based on the buyer’s CryptoPunk. Each CryptoPunk has a unique combination of 87 attributes such as a medical mask, a hat or an earring, and 159 colors that will be reflected in the pendant. Each piece will be rendered in 18-karat gold and contain at least 30 gemstones and/or diamonds, Tiffany said.

Each NFTiff, which provides access to a pendant and a matching NFT digital representation, costs a pretty penny: 30 ETH, or about $50,000.

Davis, CryptoPunks’ brand manager, told CNN that the Tiffany pendants are just an iteration of possible projects related to the NFTs.

“Owning an NFT means you own an entry on the blockchain,” Davis explained. “It’s an indelible record that can never be fraudulently modified, can’t be forged, can’t be copied, can’t be destroyed. It’s there forever. Owning an NFT is a really powerful thing for the digital era.”

In March, Yuga Labs, the parent company of Bored Ape Yacht Club, another well-known early NFT project, acquired all intellectual property (IP) for CryptoPunks – and announced plans to grant all CryptoPunk holders commercial rights. It opened the door for projects like the Tiffany pendants. “Owning a token doesn’t just mean that this JPEG belongs to you,” Davis said. “That means you have certain rights as to what you can do with your CryptoPunk, what kind of IP you can build around it. There are extremely few restrictions.”

The Tiffany pendants “perfectly illustrate the license that comes out,” Davis said. “In this case, owners of Cryptopunks are essentially commissioning Tiffany’s to create new IP out of their CryptoPunk, and the new IP is a pendant. You have to own the CryptoPunk to own the IP for the pendant.”

The project also represents the growing intermingling between luxury brands, cryptocurrency and NFTs. Historic auction houses such as Christie’s and Sotheby’s have sold NFTs for impressive prices. And in May, Gucci announced plans to let customers pay for purchases with Bitcoin and several other cryptocurrencies.

“If we’re entering an era where the virtual world is going to become more and more important to our lived experience, owning virtual goods is going to be that much more valuable,” Davis said. “To get a head start on that, for these luxury companies to come into the space now, when we’re really still early days, that’s brilliant and it makes perfect sense.”

Davis told CNN that he hopes the opening of commercial rights to CryptoPunk holders leads to more unique community-driven projects, as NFT holders use their IP as the basis for their own ventures.

“The benefit to CryptoPunks is the community,” he added. “There’s no need to add more because the incredible community that already exists is the community members. Finding ways to amplify those voices, provide more networking opportunities, and really just keep punk punk — that’s the goal.”

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