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Larva Labs CryptoPunks Marketplace Review: Only for CryptoPunks Super Fans

Review Updated
Lyle Daly
Author: Lyle Daly
Lyle Daly
Lyle Daly
Writer

Lyle Daly is a personal finance writer who specializes in credit cards, travel rewards programs, and banking. His work with Motley Fool Money and The Motley Fool has appeared syndicated in USA Today and Yahoo! Finance. He was born in California but currently lives as a digital nomad with a home base in Colombia.

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Larva Labs is where you can buy the popular line of CryptoPunks NFTs, and it doesn't charge any service fees for doing so. This lab also offers 3D characters called Meebits, as well as other blockchain and gaming projects. However, Larva Labs has a limited selection of NFTs compared to the major marketplaces. Read our CryptoPunks marketplace review to find out if it's right for you.

Ratings Methodology

Larva Labs CryptoPunks

Larva Labs CryptoPunks
Rating image, 2.50 out of 5 stars.
2.50/5 Circle with letter I in it. Our ratings are based on a 5 star scale. 5 stars equals Best. 4 stars equals Excellent. 3 stars equals Good. 2 stars equals Fair. 1 star equals Poor. We want your money to work harder for you. Which is why our ratings are biased toward offers that deliver versatility while cutting out-of-pocket costs.
 = Best
= Excellent
= Good
= Fair
= Poor

Types of NFTs

Collectible characters

Fees

N/A

Blockchain

Ethereum

  • Services

    Buy, sell

    Supported Wallets

    Metamask

    Payment Methods

    Ethereum (ETH)
    • No service fees
    • Buy CryptoPunks and Meebits
    • Limited NFT options
    • V1 Punks controversy
    • Different design than most NFT marketplaces
    • No NFT minting

  • Due to the lack of features and NFTs, this platform doesn't compete with the top NFT marketplaces.

Full Larva Labs CryptoPunks marketplace review

This NFT marketplace is a good fit for: Fans of CryptoPunks or Meebits who want to buy their first NFT or expand their collection.

What is the Larva Labs CryptoPunks marketplace?

Larva Labs is a software development company that's most famous for creating the CryptoPunks, a collection of digital characters that helped popularize NFTs. The CryptoPunks marketplace is on the Larva Labs website. It also has a marketplace for the team's other NFT project, Meebits.

The Larva Labs site isn't strictly an NFT market. It also showcases the company's other projects, which include blockchain art, apps, and gaming. Although Larva Labs is best known for its NFTs, its web platform is much different than what you see on other NFT marketplaces.

In March 2022, Larva Labs sold the CryptoPunks and Meebits intellectual properties to Yuga Labs, creator of the rival NFT collection Bored Apes Yacht Club. Although Yuga Labs now owns both collections, the CryptoPunks and Meebits marketplaces are still on Larva Lab's website.

Top perks

No service fees

Larva Labs doesn't charge any service fees on either the CryptoPunks marketplace or the Meebits marketplace when buying NFTs. Note that because the marketplaces use the Ethereum blockchain, transactions have gas fees. The gas fees on each NFT sale are charged by Ethereum and not by Larva Labs.

Buy CryptoPunk and Meebits

The CryptoPunks are some of the most popular NFTs, and if you want to buy one, you can do so on Larva Labs. This company also offers newer types of digital collectibles called Meebits, although those haven't had as much success or recognition as CryptoPunks.

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What could be improved

Limited NFT options

This site only has two NFT collections available, and they're both lines of digital characters. If you want to shop for other types of NFTs, such as digital art or videos, this isn't the best NFT marketplace for you.

Also worth mentioning is that Larva Lab's NFTs tend to be expensive. CryptoPunks normally cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in Ethereum, which puts them out of most people's price range.

To be fair, Larva Labs is a software development company, and its site is home to the team's professional projects. It's not built to be a massive NFT marketplace with something for everybody. But if you came across it while searching for a CryptoPunks NFT, it's good to know what you will and won't find on the company's website.

RELATED: Best NFT Marketplaces

V1 Punks controversy

Larva Labs' reputation took a hit after an incident related to V1 Punks, the original CryptoPunks project released by the lab. This version isn't as popular as the official CryptoPunks collection that Larva Labs made after, but it has seen some success as the alternative version of such a popular project.

In January 2022, one of the Larva Labs founders sold 40 of these V1 Punks for 260 ETH (worth well over $500,000 at that time). Just weeks later, Larva Labs released a statement saying V1 Punks aren't real CryptoPunks. Then, it announced it planned to take legal action against the V1 Punks collection.

To sum it up, a Larva Labs founder made a significant sum selling V1 Punks, and the company then went after that very same NFT collection. This seriously damaged its credibility in the NFT space.

Different design than most NFT marketplaces

Both the Larva Labs website and the CryptoPunks marketplace have much different layouts than a typical NFT marketplace. For example, the CryptoPunks marketplace includes large collages of different characters and lets you sort through them based on their types and attributes.

Because of how different it is, there's a bit of a learning curve to using the platform and finding the NFT you want. Compared to other marketplaces, it's not as beginner friendly.

No NFT minting

Larva Labs is designed for buying and selling its own NFTs. It's not a place where you can mint NFTs of your own and list them for sale.

Alternatives to consider

Offer


Rating
Rating image, 4.00 out of 5 stars.
4.00/5 Circle with letter I in it. Our ratings are based on a 5 star scale. 5 stars equals Best. 4 stars equals Excellent. 3 stars equals Good. 2 stars equals Fair. 1 star equals Poor. We want your money to work harder for you. Which is why our ratings are biased toward offers that deliver versatility while cutting out-of-pocket costs.
 = Best
= Excellent
= Good
= Fair
= Poor
Rating image, 4.00 out of 5 stars.
4.00/5 Circle with letter I in it. Our ratings are based on a 5 star scale. 5 stars equals Best. 4 stars equals Excellent. 3 stars equals Good. 2 stars equals Fair. 1 star equals Poor. We want your money to work harder for you. Which is why our ratings are biased toward offers that deliver versatility while cutting out-of-pocket costs.
 = Best
= Excellent
= Good
= Fair
= Poor
Commissions
$10 purchase minimum, other fees charged on a per-service basis. 0.0% - 0.40% maker-taker fees on Kraken Pro
0% commission, variable spread
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Platform features

Larva Labs and the CryptoPunks marketplace work differently than a standard NFT marketplace. Here's what you need to know about this platform's features.

Services

Larva Labs offers separate marketplaces for both its NFT collections, CryptoPunks and Meebits. You can buy and sell these digital characters on their respective marketplaces, either by bidding on auctions or purchasing them through a buy now option.

Since Larva Labs isn't exclusively dedicated to NFTs, it also has other types of projects on its site. These include apps, games, and blockchain art.

Blockchains

Both the CryptoPunks marketplace and the Meebits marketplace are built on the Ethereum blockchain.

Supported wallets

Larva Labs supports Metamask, which is one of the top NFT wallet options. You can use Metamask to store each CryptoPunks and Meebits NFT you purchase.

RELATED: Best NFT Wallets

Payment methods

Larva Labs accepts cryptocurrency payments made with Ethereum. You'll need Ethereum if you want to buy any of its NFTs. Since it's such a popular cryptocurrency, Ethereum is widely available on most top crypto exchanges.

RELATED: Best Places to Buy Ethereum

Fees

Larva Labs doesn't charge fees on either of its NFT marketplaces. There are gas fees, because transactions are on the Ethereum blockchain, but the platform itself doesn't take any service fees.

What NFTs can you buy on the Larva Labs CryptoPunks marketplace?

Larva Labs CryptoPunks marketplace is only for buying and selling CryptoPunks NFTs, which are collectible characters. The Larva Labs site also has a separate marketplace for Meebits, which is another collection of digital characters that it created.

Is the Larva Labs CryptoPunks marketplace safe to use?

The Larva Labs CryptoPunks marketplace is a safe place to buy and sell NFTs. CryptoPunks that you buy are stored in your own Metamask wallet, not on Larva Labs. If you keep your wallet and your seed phrase secure, then your NFTs will be protected.

There was a security incident involving Larva Labs Meebit marketplace in May 2021. Hackers were able to take advantage of an exploit in the platform to mint and obtain a Meebit worth over $700,000.

This incident didn't directly affect users, as no one lost their NFTs. It was a situation where hackers gamed the system to get a valuable NFT from Larva Labs.

The Larva Labs CryptoPunks marketplace is right for you if:

  • You want to browse CryptoPunks and/or Meebits.
  • You're interested in checking out Larva Labs' other projects.