Stylogenyin the style of NFT Profile-Picture Collections (CryptoPunks to Bored Apes)

Digital native · 2017–present · Global / networked, North America

NFT Profile-Picture Collections (CryptoPunks to Bored Apes)

Also known as PFP NFTs, PFP projects, Generative avatar collections, 10k projects, CryptoPunks style

Sets of thousands of avatar portraits that code assembles from one or two hundred hand-drawn traits, each sold as a token on a blockchain. Each image repeats one character in one pose on a flat coloured square, varied only by skin, eyes, mouth, headwear and accessories whose rarity drives the price. Begun with Larva Labs' 24×24-pixel CryptoPunks (2017) and booming with Yuga Labs' thick-outlined cartoon Bored Apes (2021), it made the social-media profile picture a badge of club membership and wealth.

Make something in this styleGet advice in this styleMix it with another style

A light blue poster headed “PIXELPALS” displays 36 pixel-art animal avatars in six rows of six. The side-facing characters wear varied hats, sunglasses, headphones, clothing and other accessories.
AI-generated by Stylogeny from the style’s design choices. Not a real or historical work.

Use it with care

Most collections were sold as speculative assets and lost most of their value after 2022 (the Bored Ape floor price fell by about 90% from its May 2022 peak by May 2024); draw your own characters and trait layers rather than imitating a collection's punks or apes, whose rights belong to their holders or rights owners, and do not present an avatar set as an investment. Do not make skin tone, gender or ethnic dress a rarity tier: a study of the full CryptoPunks sales history finds that punks with black and brown skin sell for less than light-skinned ones, a gap their other facial features do not explain (Hubbard and LaFave, Journal of Cultural Economics, 2025), and the Bored Apes have been accused of racism, which their founders deny (Anti-Defamation League researchers called the charge doubtful but said traits such as 'Hip-Hop' can be seen as problematic). Keep identity traits evenly distributed, and keep racially or culturally coded costume off animal characters.

01

How it works

  • Draw one base character in one fixed pose and crop, then split everything that may vary (skin or fur, eyes, mouth, headwear, clothing, jewellery, background) into separate layers that stack in register.
  • Let code combine the layers into thousands of unique portraits (10,000 is the classic run) and number each one, so the set reads as a catalogue of near-identical variants: CryptoPunk #5822, not a title.
  • Make rarity a design variable: give some types and traits to only a handful of portraits (9 aliens among 10,000 punks) and keep the common ones plain, so that collectors can rank the set, but keep skin tone and gender out of the rarity scale.
  • Set the character, usually a bust, alone on one flat colour square, cropped at the neck or chest and legible at thumbnail size, so it still reads as an avatar in a small circle or hexagon.
  • Keep one drawing mode across the whole set: hard-edged faces on a tiny pixel grid, or flat cartoon characters with heavy outlines and a deadpan, bored stare.
  • Show the collection as a grid of numbered thumbnails and list each portrait's traits beside it as data, rather than lettering the picture (beyond a patch or logo on a trait).

CryptoPunks by Larva Labs, the Canadian software developers Matt Hall and John Watkinson, first released on the Ethereum blockchain on 23 June 2017, after a first launch on 9 June was botched by a bug in the smart contract. The punks came out of an avatar generator the pair had been building, were inspired by the Rare Pepe meme cards traded as tokens on Counterparty since September 2016, and resembled 1980s video-game sprites. The format boomed in 2021 with Yuga Labs' Bored Ape Yacht Club (April 2021) and its many followers, then collapsed in value from 2022, when one estimate put the number of NFT sales down by over 90% (May 2022). Yuga Labs bought the CryptoPunks IP on 11 March 2022 and gave owners commercial rights to their punks; it sold the IP to the nonprofit Infinite Node Foundation (NODE) in May 2025

02

Its design choices

From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

Layout & composition
Space & hierarchy
Typography
Colour
Form & shape
Surface & texture
Ornament
Imagery
Medium & production
Tone & intent
Avoids
Non-representational, Straight photography, Typography only, Collage & layering, Paper & letterpress bite, Painterly brushwork, Calm & contemplative

Palette

  • #adc9d6
  • #d6adad
  • #b8a7ce
  • #f2a03d
  • #8b5a2b
  • #111111

Typefaces

  • Montserrat, the geometric sans of the CryptoPunks website

    cryptopunks.app

  • The current CryptoPunks wordmark (cryptopunks.app), a smooth sans whose C, t, P and u are built partly from square pixel blocks

  • Druk Text Heavy and Druk Wide Heavy (Berton Hasebe, Commercial Type), heavy condensed and wide display sans on the Bored Ape Yacht Club website, with Druk Text set in capitals for the mobile menu and headings

  • Token numbers ('#5822') and trait names set as interface text beside each image, never lettered into the portrait

Known for

  • Larva Labs (Matt Hall and John Watkinson), CryptoPunks (first released 23 June 2017)

    10,000 portraits of 24×24 pixels, generated from 87 attributes across five types (6,039 male, 3,840 female, 88 zombies, 24 apes and 9 aliens), inspired by the London punk scene and cyberpunk, and at first free to claim for the network fee, apart from 1,000 that Larva Labs kept (punks 0 to 999)

  • The rare alien punks as trophies

    #5822, the collection's largest sale, went for 8,000 ETH (about US$23.7 million) on 12 February 2022, and Alien #7523, the only masked alien (the 'Covid Alien'), sold at Sotheby's for US$11.8 million (June 2021)

  • Eight CryptoPunks, among them #74 and #5160 given by Hall and Watkinson, donated to the Museum of Modern Art's Media and Performance department (December 2025)

  • Yuga Labs, Bored Ape Yacht Club (April 2021)

    10,000 cartoon apes generated from 172 assets, with Seneca as lead designer and Thomas Dagley and Migwashere among those who drew traits; sold at 0.08 ETH each from 23 April 2021, it sold only about 500 apes in the pre-sale, then sold out within about 12 hours of the official launch and reveal on 1 May; co-founder Greg Solano ('Gargamel') called the apes' mood 'existential boredom'

  • Larva Labs, Meebits (3 May 2021)

    20,000 3D voxel characters assembled by a generator, taking the punks' pixel look from 2D portraits into three dimensions, each with a rigged T-pose model for games and virtual worlds

  • Pudgy Penguins (22 July 2021)

    8,888 penguin characters; bought by Luca Netz and partners in April 2022, the brand reached Walmart and Amazon as Pudgy Toys in 2023

  • A lot of 101 Bored Apes, sold at Sotheby's for US$24.4 million

    9 September 2021

  • Doodles (17 October 2021), by the digital artist Burnt Toast (Scott Martin) with Evan Keast and Jordan Castro

    10,000 'colorful pastel-hued characters' (humans, aliens, skeletons and mascots with sunglasses, AirPods or halos), sold at 0.123 ETH each

03

Make something in this style

Say what you need, and Stylogeny’s image studio draws it from NFT Profile-Picture Collections (CryptoPunks to Bored Apes)’s design choices and checks it against them. It takes about a minute, and you get a link to share.

Rule out a choice, read the prompt, or blend in another style: take this brief to Mix styles.

04

Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

Before it

The style it grew out of, and the styles it borrowed from.

This styleNFT Profile-Picture Collections (CryptoPunks to Bored Apes)2017–present · Global / networked, North America

After it

The styles that grew out of it.

No later style in the atlas grew out of it yet.

Alike in its design choices

Styles that make many of the same choices, related or not, besides those above.

05

Sources

  1. CryptoPunks, https://www.cryptopunks.app/ (10,000 unique 24×24 pixel portraits 'inspired by the London 80s punk scene and the 90s cyberpunk culture'; first released on 23 June 2017; free to claim for the network fee; the top-sales list with #5822 at 8.00K ETH, US$23.74 million; Montserrat in the site CSS; the wordmark with pixel-block C, t, P and u; page backgrounds #adc9d6, #d6adad and #b8a7ce)
  2. CryptoPunks attributes, https://www.cryptopunks.app/cryptopunks/attributes (the 87 attributes; type counts of 6,039 male, 3,840 female, 88 zombie, 24 ape and 9 alien)
  3. Amy Castor and David Gerard, 'The early history of NFTs, part 4 — Game sprites on the blockchain: CryptoPunks' (16 June 2022), https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2022/06/16/the-early-history-of-nfts-part-4-game-sprites-on-the-blockchain-cryptopunks/ (Hall and Watkinson 'had been fiddling with an avatar generator' and 'were inspired by the Rare Pepes to create CryptoPunks'; the punks 'resembled two-dimensional sprite images from a 1980s video game'; first launched on 9 June 2017, when a smart-contract bug sent buyers' money back to them; Larva Labs kept Punks 0 to 999)
  4. Wikipedia, 'Rare Pepe', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Pepe (variations on Pepe the Frog traded on the 'meme market' like trading cards; first minted as on-chain collectible assets on Counterparty, built on Bitcoin, in September 2016)
  5. Wikipedia, 'CryptoPunks', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoPunks (release by Larva Labs in June 2017; the five types and their counts; inspiration from the London punk scene and cyberpunk; Yuga Labs acquired all of the CryptoPunks IP on 11 March 2022 and gave owners full commercial rights; sale of the IP to the nonprofit NODE Foundation in May 2025; its reference to CNBC, 10 June 2021, on the 'Covid Alien' sold at Sotheby's; note that it says MoMA added 10 CryptoPunks, against the eight The Block lists by number)
  6. The Block, on MoMA's acquisition of CryptoPunks and Chromie Squiggles (21 December 2025), https://www.theblock.co/post/383446/moma-adds-cryptopunks-and-chromie-squiggles-nfts-to-permanent-collection (eight CryptoPunks, #74, #2786, #3407, #4018, #5160, #5616, #7178 and #7899, for the Media and Performance department; #74 and #5160 donated by Matt Hall and John Watkinson; Yuga Labs sold the CryptoPunks IP to the Infinite Node Foundation in May 2025)
  7. The Block, 'Rare "Alien" CryptoPunk fetches $11.8 million in Sotheby's auction' (11 June 2021), https://www.theblock.co/post/108186/rare-alien-cryptopunk-fetches-11-8-million-in-sothebys-auction (Alien #7523, one of nine aliens and the only one with a mask, sold for US$11.8 million)
  8. Wikipedia, 'Bored Ape Yacht Club', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bored_Ape_Yacht_Club (April 2021 launch; 10,000 NFTs derived from 172 assets; Seneca credited as lead designer, with Thomas Dagley and Migwashere named by Gargamel among those who did traits; 0.08 ETH each; Gargamel's 'existential boredom'; floor price from 128 ETH in May 2022 to 13.395 ETH by May 2024, about 90%; section 'Allegations of racism': the accusations, the Anti-Defamation League researchers' view and the founders' denial)
  9. Eric Choi, 'The early growth story of Bored Ape Yacht Club', The Web3 Growth Story (31 October 2022), https://echoi.substack.com/p/the-early-growth-story-of-bored-ape (pre-sale from 23 April 2021 at 0.08 ETH; only 500 apes sold in the pre-sale; all 10,000 revealed and officially launched on 1 May 2021, sold out 12 hours later)
  10. Bored Ape Yacht Club, https://boredapeyachtclub.com/ (the site CSS loads DrukText_Heavy and DrukWide_Heavy, with Inter and DM Mono; the navigation is set in Druk Text with text-transform uppercase)
  11. Commercial Type, 'Druk', https://commercialtype.com/catalog/druk and https://commercialtype.com/catalog/druk/druk (a family with 'the narrowest, widest, and heaviest typefaces in the Commercial Type library', designed without a normal width; Berton Hasebe's Druk adapts 'old condensed sans serifs' for contemporary use; Druk Text and Druk Wide among its members)
  12. The Block, 'Bored Ape NFT auction on Sotheby's closes with $6 million premium' (9 September 2021), https://www.theblock.co/post/117125/bored-ape-nft-auction-on-sothebys-closes-with-6-million-premium (a lot of 101 Bored Apes sold for US$24.4 million against a US$12–18 million estimate)
  13. The Block, 'CryptoPunks creator Larva Labs launches new NFT project, dubbed "Meebits"' (3 May 2021), https://www.theblock.co/post/103664/larva-labs-crypto-punks-creator-nft-meebits (20,000 '3D pixelated avatars' from 'a generator of voxel characters'; each comes with an asset pack containing a T-pose version for games and virtual worlds)
  14. Meebits, About, https://meebits.com/about ('20,000 generative voxel sculptures expanding from 2D portraits into 3D form', 'algorithmically assembled and fully rigged'; launched by Larva Labs in 2021; each came with its own 3D files)
  15. Wikipedia, 'Pudgy Penguins', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pudgy_Penguins (created 22 July 2021; 8,888 penguins; bought in April 2022 by Luca Netz and four partners; Pudgy Toys at Walmart and Amazon in 2023)
  16. Fortune, 'Artist Scott Martin helped create an NFT art collection that has done $166.1 million in sales after just 3 months' (29 January 2022), https://fortune.com/2022/01/29/artist-burnt-toast-created-nft-art-collection-166-million-sales (Doodles launched on 17 October 2021; 10,000 'colorful pastel-hued characters with whimsical and joyful expressions'; humans, aliens, skeletons and mascots with sunglasses, AirPods and halos; 0.123 ETH each; co-founded by Scott Martin (Burnt Toast) with Jordan Castro and Evan Keast)
  17. ChainCatcher, 'Mfers: An Atypical Success Story in the NFT Space' (4 April 2022), https://www.chaincatcher.com/en/article/2072300, and NonFungible, mfers market tracker, https://www.nonfungible.com/market-tracker/mfers (sartoshi's 10,021 stick figures, each wearing headphones and typing on an off-screen keyboard; first sales on 30 November 2021 at 0.069 ETH; CC0, in the public domain)
  18. Fortune, 'Twitter will verify NFT profile pictures with hexagon frames—if users pay' (21 January 2022), https://fortune.com/2022/01/21/twitter-blue-nft-profile-pic-hexagon-frame-feature-verification (for Twitter Blue subscribers on iOS only; a hexagonal frame instead of the standard circle; tapping it shows the collection and traits)
  19. Wikipedia, 'Non-fungible token', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-fungible_token (a May 2022 estimate put the number of NFT sales down over 90% on 2021)
  20. Timothy P. Hubbard and Daniel R. LaFave, 'Price differentials and skin tone in digital art', Journal of Cultural Economics (2025), https://doi.org/10.1007/s10824-025-09570-0 (title, authors, journal and date confirmed through Crossref; the paper studies skin tone and price across CryptoPunks sales)
  21. Daniel LaFave and Timothy P. Hubbard, 'Price Differentials and Skin Tone in Digital Art', Western Economic Association International conference abstract, https://weai.secure-platform.com/a/solicitations/14/sessiongallery/725/application/4229 (from the full CryptoPunks transaction history, tokens with black and brown skin tone sell for about 10% less on average than light-skinned images, a gap not explained by controlling for the complete set of facial features)

How Stylogeny researches and checks a style: where the facts come from.