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The Museum of Modern Art announced on December 20, 2025, that it has added 12 CryptoPunks and six Chromie Squiggles to its permanent collection, marking the institution’s largest acquisition of generative art NFTs through a coordinated donation from collectors and projects.
CryptoPunks, welcome to the @MuseumModernArt collection!
Punk 4018, Punk 2786, Punk 5616, Punk 5160, Punk 3407, Punk 7178, Punk 74, and Punk 7899 have found a permanent home at MoMA, where they’ll be preserved and cared for as part of the museum’s history.
The collective… pic.twitter.com/hswHYVML2R
— CryptoPunks (@cryptopunks) December 19, 2025
The works include CryptoPunks #635 (Ape), #4156 (Zombie), and #7804 (Alien), three of the rarest traits, alongside high-profile Squiggles from Snowfro’s Art Blocks series. The donation was organized by the CryptoPunks and Autoglyphs communities in collaboration with Art Blocks, with individual holders contributing pieces valued collectively at over $15 million at current floor prices.
Squiggles and Punks @ MoMA
#9681 – Normal donated by @squiggleDAO
#6887 – Slinky donated by an anon collector
#2022 – Fuzzy donated by @gmoneyNFT
#8107 – Ribbed donated by my wife Mara and I
#4436 – Bold donated by @jdh
#1047 – Pipe donated by @VonMises14
#5465 – Hyper… https://t.co/FgYm3MJkrM pic.twitter.com/pZD6PB65Dt— Erick / Snowfro / 🦩 / LAO / #️⃣ / 🔴 (@ArtOnBlockchain) December 19, 2025
CryptoPunks, launched by Larva Labs in 2017, is recognized as one of the pioneering NFT projects and set the blueprint for subsequent profile-picture collections. The set of 10,000 algorithmically generated 24×24-pixel avatars appeared before the ERC-721 standard that formalized NFTs on Ethereum.
Chromie Squiggles, the flagship generative art collection from Art Blocks, was created by founder Erick Calderon (Snowfro) and released in November 2020. The 10,000-piece series laid the groundwork for the Art Blocks platform, which at its height in August 2021 generated more than $587 million in monthly sales.
If you think a collector’s donation is like just sending random NFTs to someone’s wallet, you’re missing the point.
Donations are a key way museums acquire items. Every proposed donation goes through a strict curatorial review to check its relevance, quality, and fit with the… pic.twitter.com/menhtH9uWu
— 𝚃𝙲 💫 (@tinoch) December 21, 2025
The MoMA acquisition is the latest step in a deliberate effort to place CryptoPunks in major art institutions. In May 2025, Yuga Labs transferred the CryptoPunks intellectual property to the Infinite Node Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving digital art. Chaired by investor Micky Malka, the foundation pledged to “embed them in leading art institutions worldwide” through its stewardship program. MoMA had previously acquired AI artist Refik Anadol’s work of art in October 2023.
The move also coincides with a modest revival in blue-chip NFT trading. CryptoPunks recorded their highest weekly volume since March 2024 in late July, with over $24.6 million in sales. Still, the collection’s market capitalization has fallen sharply from a 2025 peak near $2.5 billion to around $736 million today.
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