FAQ

Questions.

How Permanent Collection works, and the intent behind the mechanics.

The work

What is Permanent Collection?: Permanent Collection is an onchain protocol and a live artwork. It assembles a permanent collection of CryptoPunks by trait. Trading in the official pool funds a single public ETH bid. A Punk carrying an uncollected trait can accept the bid. The Punk then enters a 72-hour return auction. If the market returns the Punk to circulation, the trait stays open. If not, the Punk enters the vault and one chosen trait becomes permanent. The work completes when all 111 distinct traits are represented by vaulted Punks.
Why CryptoPunks?: Punks are one of the clearest examples of onchain culture becoming art history. They're images, but they're also a network of owners, traits, prices, provenance, wallets, bids, and belief. The collection has always extended beyond the image. Permanent Collection treats that network as part of the material.
Why collect by trait, instead of by Punk?: Traits are how Punks became legible to the market and to culture. Alien, Ape, Hoodie, Beanie, Small Shades, every other one. The sealed dataset contains 111 distinct traits. By recording one trait per vaulted Punk, the protocol writes a permanent record one decision at a time. A common looking Punk can become historically important by completing a small trait. A famous Punk might be eligible only because of a single accessory. The system can't predict which Punks end up permanent.
Is this affiliated with the original CryptoPunks team or Yuga Labs?: No. Permanent Collection is independent. It reads the canonical onchain CryptoPunks dataset and interacts with the original 2017 Punks market the same way any other participant does.

The live bid

What is the live bid?: One global ETH offer. It's standing open to any eligible Punk owner. Anyone can read the current amount. Any eligible Punk owner can accept it.
How is the live bid funded?: Mostly by trading. Every $111 swap pays a 6% baseline skim. The skim splits inside the same swap into a bid leg of 5% of volume and a protocol leg of 1%. The bid leg streams into the live bid through an adapter that runs in fast mode below an activation threshold (filling the bid uncapped) and switches to a rate cap above it. At launch the conversion locker holds 100% of the official pool's LP positions and routes its share of the 0.5% V4 LP fee to the same adapter, so the LP fee feeds the bid too until public LPs add depth. Cleared return auctions also send 65% of the original bid back into the live bid.
Why does the live bid fill fast at first and slow down as it gets higher?: By design. While the live bid is small (below the activation threshold) the adapter forwards buffered fees into the bid uncapped, so it warms up quickly at launch. Once the bid reaches realistic Punk price territory the adapter switches to a rate cap: it adds at most 0.5 ETH per short cooldown, so a sudden burst of volume drips in instead of lurching the standing offer past floor prices in a single block.
What is the activation threshold and how is it set?: It's the live bid level that separates the two modes: below it the bid fills uncapped, at or above it the rate cap applies. It isn't hand managed. After each accepted Punk it resets to 75% of that clearing price (the latest revealed floor, minus a 25% band), so the fast fill ceiling tracks the real market and the throttle engages before the bid reaches floor. It opens at a 30 ETH launch seed and is capped at 100 ETH.
Why is there only one bid?: The protocol is one collector with one open offer. A single bid keeps the work legible. Anyone can read the current price the protocol is willing to pay for any eligible Punk. Per Punk bids would turn the protocol into a strategy game. One bid keeps it an artwork.
Can the live bid be canceled or withdrawn?: No. The contract holding the live bid can pay out only by acquiring an eligible Punk. There's no admin withdrawal, no governance withdrawal, no upgrade path that can reach the balance.
Can I add to the live bid without trading?: Yes. Anyone can send ETH directly to the live bid adapter. There's also an attributed contribution function for integrations like launchpads, wallets, or apps that want to route a portion of their own activity into the bid. A small share of an attributed contribution can go to a tagged referrer. The remainder buffers into the bid.

Accepting and the return auction

Who can accept the live bid?: The current owner of an eligible Punk. The owner lists the Punk to the protocol at any positive price up to the current live bid. Once the listing is in place, anyone can finalize the sale onchain. The seller is paid the listed amount through the canonical CryptoPunks market.
What makes a Punk eligible?: A Punk is eligible if it carries at least one trait that's still uncollected and not currently in an active return auction. The protocol records the rarest uncollected trait the Punk carries. Ties go to the lowest trait index. The choice is mechanical, not curated, and the same for every eligible Punk.
How is the trait that becomes permanent chosen?: You don't choose it, and neither does the finder or the admin. The protocol derives it: the rarest uncollected trait the Punk carries that isn't already in an active return auction. Ties go to the lowest trait index. The rule runs off the sealed dataset, so anyone reading the contract can compute the same trait for the same Punk, and the bid page shows you exactly which trait before you sign. Making the choice mechanical keeps it from becoming a strategy lever and protects the rarer traits from being skipped in favor of common ones. The trait only becomes permanent if the Punk isn't returned during its 72-hour return auction.
What if my Punk's traits are all already permanent?: Then it's no longer eligible. The protocol only acquires a Punk that carries at least one uncollected, non-pending trait. As the collection fills in, fewer Punks remain eligible. Some Punks become permanently ineligible because every trait they carry is already represented by a vaulted Punk.
What happens after a Punk owner accepts?: The Punk moves into a 72-hour return auction. The owner is paid through the canonical Punks market. The live bid balance drops by the listed amount. The protocol's records grow by one acquisition row with the chosen trait recorded.
What is a return auction?: A 72-hour window in which the market can return the Punk to circulation. Anyone can place a bid. A bid above the reserve at the deadline returns the Punk to the winning bidder, and the trait stays open. If no bid clears the reserve by the deadline, the Punk enters the vault and the chosen trait becomes permanent.
What is the reserve in a return auction?: The reserve is the protocol's acquisition cost plus a small premium. The first auction for a given trait reserves at cost plus 1%. Each prior contested auction for the same trait adds another 1%. The reserve is locked in when the auction starts.
When I am outbid, do I get my bid back?: Yes. When someone places a higher bid, the previous high bidder is refunded automatically. If that automatic refund fails to send, the funds aren't lost. You can claim them from the return auction contract.
Why did the auction deadline move after a late bid?: Bids placed in the final 15 minutes extend the deadline by 1 hour. This keeps a last second bid from ending the auction before anyone can respond. The extension is uncapped, so an auction stays open as long as bidding keeps coming in.
Can the same Punk go through more than one return auction?: Yes. If a Punk is returned to circulation by a winning bid, the owner can accept the live bid again later if the Punk is still eligible. Each new acceptance starts a fresh 72-hour window with a fresh reserve, and the protocol records a new acquisition row. Once a Punk enters the vault, that path is closed.

The vault

What does it mean for a Punk to be vaulted?: A vaulted Punk has entered a custody contract with no withdrawal path. The recorded trait becomes permanent at the same moment.
Can a vaulted Punk ever leave?: No. The vault contract holds Punks through a structure that can't move them. This is asserted at the bytecode level. No transfer, withdraw, rescue, or sweep selector exists in the deployed contract. The launch tests fail if any of those ever appear.
Why does only one trait become permanent per vaulted Punk?: A Punk usually carries several traits. The protocol records the rarest uncollected one at acquisition, and only that one becomes permanent on vaulting. The Punk's other uncollected traits stay open for the future. This makes vaulting feel deliberate, and keeps the system from racing through the easy traits first.
What are the Proofs, and who gets them?: When a Punk is vaulted and a trait becomes permanent for the first time, an ERC721 Proof is minted. There can be up to 111 Proofs, one per trait. The Proof is minted to the recorded seller of the Punk. If the Punk's owner accepted the live bid directly, the Proof goes to them. If the Punk was acquired through an allowlisted public listing finalized by a third party finder, the Proof goes to the listing seller, not the finder. The finder is paid a small fee, the seller is paid the listing price, and the seller receives the Proof on settle. Proofs don't grant withdrawal rights over the vault and don't carry a claim on the Punks inside.
Is there a Punk the protocol can never waste?: Yes. The sealed Punks dataset has exactly one rarity-1 trait, “7 Attributes”, carried by exactly one Punk: #8348. If that Punk were vaulted against any common trait it also carries, the rare trait would be stranded forever and the collection could never complete. The records core enforces this. While the rare trait is still uncollected, an acceptance of Punk #8348 can only target the rare trait. The unique carrier of the unique rarest trait can never be wasted on a common one.
What is the Vault Title?: The Vault Title is a single ERC721 token, separate from the Proofs. It names a steward of the vault. It's sold through its own auction once at least 11 traits are permanent, and the Title can be contested again during the protocol's collecting phase. The Title doesn't grant withdrawal rights, doesn't control the vault, and doesn't carry governance over the protocol. It's a title record and a stewardship object.

The onchain artwork

Where does the trait artwork come from?: The canonical onchain Punks dataset. A sealed 2017 era contract called PunksData stores every trait name and every Punk's pixel data. The renderer reads from PunksData directly. The dataset hash is pinned into the records core at deploy, and the constructor reverts if the live contract doesn't match. The protocol is bound to the exact dataset it launched against. No substitution is possible.
Is the artwork stored anywhere offchain?: No. The token's tokenURI returns a complete data URL built inside the contract. The trait grid, the trait icons, the Punk pixels, the JSON metadata, all of it is generated from sealed onchain sources at read time. There's no IPFS dependency, no Arweave dependency, no hosted image server. If this site disappears tomorrow, the token still renders.
How does the image stay current?: The renderer reads the live state of the collection every time tokenURI is called. Each of the 111 cells shows one of three states. An uncollected cell shows the isolated trait icon. A pending cell shows the trait icon for a Punk in active return auction. A permanent cell shows the vaulted Punk that made the trait permanent. When a return auction settles, the next read of tokenURI reflects the new state. Wallets and marketplaces show the change as soon as they refresh.
What's the difference between the artwork on $111, the Proofs, and the Vault Title?: Three views of the same collection. $111's image is the whole grid, all 111 traits at once, updated live. A Proof is a single cell: the specific Punk that made one specific trait permanent, with the trait icon composited cleanly on top of the vaulted Punk drawn at low opacity behind it. The Vault Title's image is the singular title record for the vault. All three render fully onchain from the same dataset.

The artcoin

What is $111?: $111 is the artcoin for Permanent Collection. It's an ERC20 on Ethereum. The official pool is a Uniswap V4 pool of $111 against ETH. Trading in that pool feeds the live bid. The token's tokenURI renders the live state of the collection, so every wallet showing $111 shows the same evolving artwork.
Does holding $111 give me a claim on the vault or the Punks?: No. $111 doesn't redeem for vaulted Punks, doesn't control the vault, and carries no governance over the protocol. There's no DAO, no vote, no parameter change open to holders. $111 is the liquid artwork and the market that funds the live bid.
Why an ERC20 instead of an NFT?: An NFT would make participation singular. The ERC20 makes the market the surface. Trading is how bids grow. The token can be bought, sold, held, ignored, or watched, and all of that activity becomes part of the work. The audience joins the system without turning the work into governance.
What does the renderer show?: A grid of all 111 traits. Open slots show isolated traits. Slots in active return auction are marked as pending. Permanent slots show the vaulted Punk that made the trait permanent. The image is drawn from chain state, so it updates as the collection advances.

Fees and trading

What is the official pool, and why does it matter where I trade?: The official pool is one specific Uniswap V4 pool of $111 against ETH. Only swaps on this pool feed the protocol. Side pools, OTC trades, or aggregator routes that bypass the official pool don't feed the live bid. The protocol's funding depends on trading happening in the right venue.
Where do the swap fees go?: Every swap pays a 6.5% total fee. 0.5% is the standard V4 LP fee paid to liquidity providers. The remaining 6% is the protocol skim. It splits inside the same swap into a bid leg of 5% of volume and a protocol leg of 1%. The protocol leg covers operations and a small $111 buy and burn. At launch the LP fee also feeds the live bid, because the conversion locker holds 100% of LP positions and routes its share to the live bid adapter.
What happens to value when a return auction clears?: The protocol's acquisition cost splits three ways: 65% refills the live bid, 25% buys and burns $111, and 10% goes to a separate $111 burn pool. The premium above cost, paid by the rescuing bidder, mostly joins the burn pool. 5% of the premium is reserved for the winning bidder's referrer if one was tagged. So the cost moves value through the system, and the premium drives a burn.
Is there an anti-sniper period at launch?: Yes. For roughly the first 30 minutes after the pool opens, the swap skim is elevated. It decays linearly from 90% down to the 6% baseline. Any extra skim collected during this window flows entirely into the live bid, so early MEV activity ends up funding the protocol rather than extracting from it.
What's the transfer tax on $111 I see flagged in some block explorers?: A buy-side tax that fires only when $111 leaves a non-official trading venue. Buying $111 from a side pool (a competing Uniswap V2 or V3 pair on the same token, for example) costs an extra 15% on top of the side pool's own fee. The taxed tokens are sent to the dead address and burned. The protocol doesn't convert them to ETH and doesn't list them. The intent is structural. The tax keeps trading inside the venue that funds the live bid. The rate is tunable up to a hard 20% cap and can never exceed that ceiling.
Does the tax fire when I sell $111 or move it around?: No. The tax fires only on buys from a non-official trading venue. Sells, wallet sends, lending deposits, bridges, and CEX moves don't trigger it. Buying from the official pool is exempt by design through a per-swap budget the hook attests. The tax is a buy-side disincentive for one specific behavior. It doesn't touch the rest of the token's lifecycle.

Permanence and the long arc

What stops the protocol from withdrawing the Punks later?: The vault has no withdrawal function. This is enforced in code, not by policy. Bytecode scans in the launch test suite check for any market write selector and any admin exit selector on the vault. If any of them existed, the launch tests would fail. There's no admin escape hatch, no emergency exit, no upgrade path that can reach the Punks.
Who controls the contracts?: A single admin role gates a small set of operational parameters at launch. Most economic parameters lock 1 year after launch. After that, the admin role can still adjust a few narrow things, like adding new sale venues to the allowlist or tuning the referral cap. It can't touch the vault, the live bid balance, the auction reserve formula, or the proceeds split. The admin role can also be burned at any time, which makes every remaining tunable permanent.
Is there a team allocation, presale, or airdrop for $111?: No. 100% of the $111 supply was deposited as liquidity in the official pool at launch. A conversion locker holds those LP positions and routes its share of fees to the live bid until public LPs add depth. There's no team allocation, no presale, no airdrop, no vesting schedule. The only way to acquire $111 is to buy it from the pool, the same way anyone else does.
Why is there no deadline?: Permanence shouldn't depend on a clock. The protocol runs until every trait is represented by a vaulted Punk, or until the remaining eligible Punks stay outside the protocol indefinitely. The vault doesn't care whether the work finishes in a year, ten years, or never. The record stays valid either way.
What happens when all 111 traits become permanent?: The collecting work is done. The vault holds the Punks that made each trait permanent. The artcoin keeps trading. The renderer keeps showing the completed collection. The contracts keep doing what they do, but there's no more collecting left to do.
What if some traits never become permanent?: That's a real possible outcome. Some traits are carried by very few Punks. If those owners never accept the live bid, those traits stay open. The collection might be 100, 105, 110 of 111 forever. The state of the work is still the record of what trading funded, what owners accepted, and what the market returned. The record is the work whether or not it reaches 111.