Chain CEO Deepak Thapliyal Makes Fourth Highest NFT Purchase in History
The CEO of blockchain-based company Chain purchased CryptoPunk #5822 for $23.7 million.
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NFTs are bought and sold online, frequently with cryptocurrency, and the ownership information is secured and stored on a distributed ledger called the blockchain. The first purchase of an NFT is called minting. It activates an already created smart contract and places the NFT in a specific spot on the blockchain network. While you could build your blockchain for creating and minting NFTs, most users choose an NFT marketplace to mint their NFTs. After an NFT is minted, the user usually has full control to either list it for sale on their choice marketplace, trade it to somebody else, or give it away for free.
A crypto wallet is necessary for NFTs purchase as it will store the keys to your NFT after purchase. These wallets can be stored online or offline, but offline storage is usually recommended since it’s considered more secure. Once the NFT is minted, purchased from the marketplace, or transferred to you by the NFT’s current owner, it will appear in your wallet.
Deepak Thapliyal is the CEO of Chain, a blockchain-based technology company aiming to enable a smarter and more connected economy. They build cryptographic ledgers and cloud infrastructure that underpin transformative financial products and Web3 services. Chain was founded in 2014 and has raised over $40 million in funding
from Khosla Ventures, Pantera Capital, Capital One, Citigroup, Fiserv, Nasdaq, Orange, and Visa. Later in 2018, Stellar acquired Chain to form Interstellar, a commercial arm of the Stellar Foundation. But again, in 2020, Chain was re-acquired to continue its mission to build a more robust global financial system through blockchain and cloud technology.
Deepak Thapliyal recently purchased CryptoPunk #5822 for 8,000 ETH ($23.7M), smashing the previous record held by DraftKings’ largest shareholder, Shalom Mackenzie, who purchased CryptoPunk #7523 for $11.8 million in June 2021. Thapliyal purchased the NFT directly from CryptoPunk developer Larva Labs’ online marketplace,
leveraging the DeFi protocol compound finance to pay for the CyptoPunk. The purchase is the largest CryptoPunk NFT purchase in history and the fourth largest NFT purchase.
Distinctive to Thapliyal’s purchase is one of the nine rare “alien” avatars that are part of the 10,000 CryptoPunk collection. CryptoPunk was developed in 2017 and is highly considered among the best non-fungible tokens arena, with an inclusive supply of 10,000 unique 8-bit-style tokenized and pixelated art images. Indeed, its popularity of being used as social media profile pictures predates today’s growing popularity of using NFTs as online avatars.
Thapliyal appreciates compound finance, which enables him to hold the ETHEREUM while buying the NFT. Compound finance or COMP is an autonomous algorithmic protocol that allows users to supply various crypto assets and start generating interest. DeFi Pulse shows that there is close to $9 billion locked into its smart contracts now. The DeFi procedure allows users to borrow against crypto positions such as ETH and
borrow stable coins, pegged to the US dollar, with interest to help them with spending. Unlike traditional banks, their compound interest rates adjust automatically depending on supply and demand at any given time.
Customers get the equivalent value of their deposit in cTokens when funds are deposited. “If they deposit ETH, they receive cETH. Customers can then immediately borrow money against deposited funds with no need for credit checks. The funds deposited must exceed the amount borrowed so that there is enough collateral for the loan to be repaid,” concludes Thapliyal.