Gary Vaynerchuk on How He Bought 59 CryptoPunks

“A lot of people have the majority of their net worth tied up in their tokens. That scares the piss out of me,” Vaynerchuk said.

article-image

Gary Vaynerchuk via his blog on Medium

share

key takeaways

  • Vaynerchuk, who spoke at 321 Blast Off: NYC, told attendees that when investing in NFTs people should do more research on the projects they’re interested in
  • “The biggest thing that helps me in the beginning is seeking out the counterpoint to my own point of view,” he said.

Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia, was an early investor in technology giants like Facebook, Venmo and Twitter. Now, the media mogul is bullish on non-fungible tokens (NFTs), owning over a 1,000 of the crypto assets, including 59 CryptoPunks, as of press time.

Vaynerchuk, who spoke at 321 Blast Off: NYC, told attendees that when investing in NFTs people should do more research on the projects they’re interested in, specifically the founders and buildings, instead of having solely “their own financial interests in mind.”

“What I don’t think people understand is that if the founders of the project are unable to continue to build success, people will become bandwagon fans, and they will sell their token and go join another community,” Vaynerchuk said. 

“And I think people are supporting projects where they don’t even know the founders’ names, let alone capable of building a property. So I think there’s an enormous amount of carnage coming and the amount of money that’s going to be lost, it’s going to be scary,” he added.

About those 59 CryptoPunks

Vaynerchuk said prior to buying he “really did a lot of homework” and then “spent the next 72 hours [reading up] on the anti-punk point of view.”

To date, he has invested $32.6 million in those 59 CryptoPunks.

“The biggest thing that helps me, in the beginning, is seeking out the counterpoint to my own point of view,” he said. 

Ape Punk 2140 owned by Vaynerchuk

“I would actively search Twitter for the counterpoint of view. Because I think what ends up happening is people buy something they like — and then it almost becomes an echo chamber,” Vaynerchuk said. 

Additionally, he recommended investors diversify their cryptocurrency portfolios, adding that “a lot of people have the majority of their net worth tied up in their tokens [and] that scares the piss out of me.”

“Don’t let your short-term financial arbitrage be the foundation of your point of view,” Vaynerchuk said.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 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.

Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

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

Research Report Templates (2).png

Research

This reports analyzes the competitive dynamics of the Solana DEX landscape, identifying sustainable moats per protocol. We also find that Raydium (RAY), Orca (ORCA), and Lifinity (LFNTY) are valued very similarly on a P/S basis and what this could mean for Meteroa's (MET) valuation, which is still pre-TGE.

article-image

With $800 million now flowing to creditors, some expect a market boost — yet many remain cautious after years of waiting

article-image

There’s more to do on Solana than memecoins, but the market isn’t seeing it that way

article-image

Galaxy’s Alex Thorn said that the saga, paired with TRUMP and MELANIA, could lead to “further destruction of the memecoin complex”

article-image

Anatoly Yakovenko in 2017 embarked on the technical challenge of solving blockchain’s scalability problem

article-image

Grayscale Investments has historically had a four-stage lifecycle for its products, but there’s an indicator this could be changing

article-image

Brian Quintenz and Jonathan Gould are two recent Cabinet nominees with ties to crypto