CryptoPunk #3100, one of the rare “Alien Punks,” has been sold for 4,500 ETH, worth approximately US$16.5 million, marking the second-largest transaction for a CryptoPunk in both U.S. dollar and ether terms.

The sale, which took place on March 4, surpassed the previous offer of 4,250 ETH made on March 1.

The CryptoPunks collection, originally minted in 2017 by Larva Labs and later acquired by Yuga Labs, is one of the most popular NFT collections today. CryptoPunk #3100 was initially purchased for over US$2,000 in 2017.

The NFT sector is showing signs of resilience and recovery, despite experiencing a downturn in 2022.

Institutions are also taking an interest, with platforms like SegMint introducing secure NFT custody solutions. The market’s revival is further evidenced by the increased attention to Bitcoin NFTs, which have surpassed Ethereum in weekly sales volume due to protocols like Ordinals that allow embedding files into Bitcoin’s smallest units, satoshis.

The Bitcoin blockchain had over US$182 million in NFT sales over the past seven days while Ethereum logged just over US$180 million, according toCryptoSlam data.