NFT Platform Ether Cards Launch Largest CryptoPunks Giveaway

Jesper Leong

September 24, 2021
5 min read
Events NFT

Community-driven NFT Platform Ether Cards launches #999Punks giveaway worth $13 million along with the launch of their Dust Token system.

Singapore-based NFT platform Ether Cards has announced the largest CryptoPunks giveaway to celebrate their success of their platform and the inaugural release of the Dust Token system, and Ether Card owners stand a chance to redeem one of the 30 CryptoPunks collectibles up for grabs.

Founded by Andras Kristof and Ben Ong, Ether Cards was conceived as a community-driven NFT launching platform with self-service capability for artists and creatives. Users can set up events, puzzles, bounties, and other features for NFTs of their choice, and the team has also developed the technology to mint dynamic NFTs that react to real-time changes. The Cryptopunks giveaway, which is worth around $13 million based on the price of Ethereum at the time of distribution, will start on 30^th September with the release of Ether Card’s ERC-20 community token known as Dust.

What is CryptoPunks? They are essentially a collection of 8-bit-style pixel art images which measures 24 by 24 pixels, and each of the ten thousand images have their own unique features. The collection was started as an art experiment by Matt Hall and John Watkinson of software company Larva Labs, and it is one of the first NFT projects built on the Ethereum blockchain.

To reward their supporters, every owner of an Ether Cards NFT will receive an airdrop of Dust tokens based on the rarity of the card type. Dust is Ether Card’s community token, and will be used across their entire ecosystem. With three types of cards available – OG, Alpha, and Founder – the OG cards will receive 100k Dust, Alphas will receive 10k, and Founder cards will get 1k tokens. This adds up to 27 million Dust in the ecosystem, and any user can use 1 million Dust to redeem 1 of the 27 CryptoPunks available in the #999Punks giveaway. The remaining three CryptoPunks will be given away in an upcoming Battle Royale game where the specifics will be announced on Ether Cards’ Twitter and Discord, with the event being open to users that own an Ether Card NFT with a ‘Punk Battle Ticket’ Trait.

CoinPasar decided to take a guess as to which of the three CryptoPunks will be given away in the Battle Royale by evaluating the rarity of the 30 CryptoPunks in Ether Cards’ OpenSea vault. We used a CryptoPunk rarity tool evaluator to assess the NFTs and noticed that most of the CryptoPunks were between ID number #4700 to #4800, while the highest rarity in the vault was no. #4731 with a rarity of 117.89. The set is by no means the rarest as compared to the alien CryptoPunks whose rarity range in the 2000s, but we are betting on CryptoPunk number #4731, #4749, and #4790 to be reserved for the Battle Royale prizes due to their higher rarity.

Elaborating on the role of Dust in their Discord, Ether Cards state that its utility goes beyond just redeeming CryptoPunk. Users can use it to redeem NFTs from other pools, pre-buy upcoming Ether Cards releases, sell or trade it, pay for Ether Cards platform services with it, and use it to charge up specific traits or skill trees. Once Dust is used, it will be burnt and removed from circulation.

As more collections such as Meebits and Mike Tyson NFTs are launched, the redemption cost will also be reduced across Ether Cards. Since all Ether Cards generate Dust passively, a Dust counter on the top right of each Ether Card will be visible on the User Interface. It is possible for users to redeem Dust to their wallet before selling the card if they wish to do so. The team also plans to make it a two-way redemption with other NFT pools, where users can redeem Meebits and other NFTs for Dust to provide flexibility for token utility.

“The Dust token drop and CryptoPunks giveaway are a way for us to give back to our Ether Cards community so that they can enjoy even more benefits as dedicated users of the platform. We’re excited to continue to bring these exclusive opportunities to our own cardholders as well as the wider Ether Card community.” Said Andras Kristof, Ether Cards Founder and CEO.

Despite having only launched in March this year, Ether Cards have already collaborated with several well-known individuals to launch their dynamic NFT series. These include American professional basketball player LaMelo Ball where the NFTs will feature milestone integrations as his career progresses, and American DJ Steve Aoki with his stop-motion NFT collectibles about the protagonist, Character X. Future developments to the platform include cross-chain launching and fiat on-ramps in their roadmap.