Trailer released for CryptoPunks documentary 

Indie filmmaker Sherone Rabinovitz has been gathering film of CryptoPunks’ founders and events for five years, and he just released the film’s trailer

article-image

mundissima/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

CryptoPunks, the pixelated NFT collection that helped drive 2021’s NFT art craze, is now the subject of a documentary five years in the making. 

Indie filmmaker Sherone Rabinovitz has been working on a CryptoPunks film since March 2018 when he sat down for an interview with the collection’s founders, John Watkinson and Matt Hall. Rabinovitz released an extended trailer on Thursday for the forthcoming documentary, which contains a four-minute cut from the 2018 interview and previews the film’s other themes. 

In the trailer, Watkinson recounts creating the punks’ accessories over the course of a month before launching the project. According to Watkinson, CryptoPunks weren’t a finished product when they launched.

“I had a few more things [to change] and all of a sudden it was like, ‘Oh wait, we’re kind of through a one-way door here. We deployed the contract already,’” Watkinson says in the 2018 interview.

The trailer goes on to nod to the cultural phenomenon that was to come just a few years later: the conferences, celebrity adoption, spinoff projects and auction house intrigue that comprised the rise of CryptoPunks. 

Yuga Labs, the company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, acquired CryptoPunks’ intellectual property from Watkinson and Hall in 2022, with the pair writing at the time that they weren’t well-suited to the “day-to-day management that these kinds of projects require and deserve.” 

The CryptoPunks floor price has trended sideways since April of this year, sitting at 45.19 ether (ETH) or around $75,000 at the time of writing. 

Rabinovitz’ documentary does not yet have an official release date, and it comes as early interest in NFT-inspired films has cooled off: Coinbase’s Bored Apes movie is currently on hold, and Reese Witherspoon’s partnership with World of Women is yet to yield any releases. 

Rabinovitz’ documentary is meant to bring CryptoPunks’ story outside of the cryptosphere.

“[W]hile many of you crypto-natives might know a bit of it, the rest of the “normie” population out there *still* does not,” the filmmaker wrote on X.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 24 - 26, 2026

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template (1).jpg

Research

As AI supercharges surveillance, privacy becomes a prerequisite and the winning stack will combine confidentiality with selective disclosure. Zcash’s Tachyon, composable standards on Ethereum/Solana, and compliance-aware pools aim to make private rails the new norm.

article-image

The startup says it aims to rival Stripe and Worldpay by using stablecoins to speed merchant settlements from days to seconds

by Blockworks /
article-image

“S&P 500” for crypto comes as segment gains “established role in global markets,” S&P exec says

article-image

The S&P Digital Markets 50 Index combines 15 cryptocurrencies with 35 crypto-linked companies, offering investors hybrid exposure

by Blockworks /
article-image

Gnosis is betting that openness — not ownership — will define the future of onchain money

article-image

Crypto’s quest to imbue shareholder protections for tokens

article-image

Grass previously raised a seed and Series A rounds and plans to utilize the token purchase to execute on its roadmap