New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has taken a decisive step into digital culture, with the NFT acquisition signaling how seriously leading institutions now treat blockchain-based art.
The Museum of Modern Art in New York has acquired eight CryptoPunks and eight Chromie Squiggles for its permanent collection, marking one of the most significant institutional endorsements of onchain art to date. Moreover, the move reinforces MoMA’s role in defining what counts as canonical digital art.
The 16 works, all donated rather than purchased, will be housed in MoMA’s Media and Performance department alongside video, experimental technology, and other new media art. However, visitors will also be able to view the works on MoMA’s website, extending the acquisition’s reach beyond the museum’s physical walls.
The specific CryptoPunks entering the collection are #74, #2786, #3407, #4018, #5160, #5616, #7178, and #7899. That said, the roster of donors highlights how deeply embedded these works are within the NFT community.
The organization publicly thanked MoMA curators Stuart Comer and Michelle Kuo for supporting the acquisition in an X post. However, the process also shows how collectors, DAOs, and curators increasingly collaborate to place digital works in institutional contexts.
CryptoPunks, created by Larva Labs in 2017, are widely considered one of the earliest NFT projects and helped establish the template for profile-picture collections that followed. The 10,000 algorithmically generated 24-by-24 pixel avatars even predate the ERC-721 token standard that would later define NFTs on Ethereum.
This history is central to the cryptopunks museum acquisition, as MoMA is effectively recognizing the project as a foundational artifact of digital culture. Moreover, it underlines how early technical experiments are now being canonized as art history.
Chromie Squiggles, the genesis collection from generative art platform Art Blocks, was launched by Erick Calderon (known as Snowfro) in November 2020. The artist’s art blocks generative collection of 10,000 artworks served as the foundation for Art Blocks.
At its peak, Art Blocks recorded over $587 million in monthly sales in August 2021, according to CryptoSlam data. However, bringing Chromie Squiggles into MoMA’s holdings reframes the collection beyond market metrics, positioning it within a longer narrative of generative art.
The acquisition follows a series of moves to embed CryptoPunks in major art institutions. In May, Yuga Labs sold the CryptoPunks intellectual property to the Infinite Node Foundation, a nonprofit focused on preserving digital art.
The foundation, chaired by investor Micky Malka, announced plans to “embed them in leading art institutions worldwide” as part of its stewardship program. That said, the MoMA NFT acquisition stands out as a flagship moment in that broader strategy.
The timing of MoMA’s move coincides with renewed interest in blue-chip NFTs. CryptoPunks saw their highest weekly trading volume since March 2024 in late July, with over $24.6 million changing hands, according to The Block’s data.
However, the total market capitalization of CryptoPunks, which reached nearly $2.5 billion this year, is now around $763 million, per CoinGecko data. This contrast between institutional recognition and a compressed market cycle highlights how museums may be taking a longer-term view than traders.
MoMA’s decision to place CryptoPunks and Chromie Squiggles in its Media and Performance department elevates these works from speculative assets to historical artifacts. Moreover, it signals that onchain art institutional endorsement is now a reality rather than a talking point.
As more museums follow, the combination of donor-led initiatives, foundations, and curatorial support is likely to define how NFTs enter the canon. For now, the MoMA acquisition anchors key early collections in one of the world’s most influential art museums.
