NFTX
1 known investors
NFTX turns NFT collections into liquid markets by creating tokens that track a collection's floor price, letting users instantly buy, sell, swap, and trade up NFTs for ETH or tokens. It provides immediate liquidity and composable trading tools for NFT holders and traders.
Also known as NFTX DAO Β· NFTX Protocol Β· Punk Farm Β· PunkFund
Investors Β· 1
Company profile
researched Aug 2026NFTX is an Ethereum-based protocol and application that makes NFT collections tradable as fungible markets. Users deposit NFTs from a supported collection into a vault and receive an ERC20 "vault token" in return; because the token is fungible and composable, it can be traded on decentralized exchanges, supplied as liquidity, or used elsewhere in DeFi. Each supported collection therefore has a liquid token that tracks its floor price. The stated mission is to become the primary issuer of NFT vault tokens so that participants can trade and invest in NFT markets without needing asset-level expertise.
The user-facing application supports instant selling at floor price for ETH or tokens, outright purchase of any NFT in a collection pool with ETH in a single transaction, like-for-like NFT swaps without needing ETH, and "trade-ups" that combine NFTs, tokens and ETH into a single transaction to move into rarer assets. A rare-listing feature lets holders take the floor value immediately while continuing to list the remaining premium value above floor. Collections shown on the site include CryptoPunks, Milady, Lil Pudgys, Cash Cats and Stackers.
The protocol shipped in versions: V1 was feature-complete around May 2021 with improvements to minting, redeeming and vault creation plus subgraph integration, after which development moved to V2, described as a protocol upgrade that shifted NFTX into a revenue-generating DAO. V1 vaults were later placed in redeem-only mode with minting disabled and a V1-to-V2 token migration made available.
Founding story
NFTX was created by Alex Gausman, who began development in the fall of 2020 under the name PunkFund (also referred to during the period as Punk Farm), initially designed as a single floor fund for CryptoPunks. After the first NFT bull market he expanded the scope so that anyone could permissionlessly create vaults, and spent about four months of full-time work building version 1. ChopChop, a contributor who had been active in DeFi communities and had helped SushiSwap during the 2020 DeFi summer, became the first core contributor to join the NFTX DAO after the launch in early 2021, setting up early communication channels and educational content.
Business model
NFTX is operated by the NFTX DAO, which builds both the protocol and the interface. V1 charged no fees; V2 lets vault creators charge fees on minting and redeeming NFTs in and out of vaults, with defaults of a 5% minting fee, 0% random redemption fee and 5% targeted redemption fee (an earlier description cited a 10% premium on targeted redemptions). These fees are distributed as rewards to the vault's liquidity providers and stakers rather than retained by the DAO. The DAO itself generates income by acting as an NFT liquidity provider on AMMs and capturing trading volume fees, and through incentive programs such as SushiSwap's Onsen, which flow to the treasury.
Protocol-level mint/redeem fees on vaults (5% mint, 5% targeted redemption by default) are paid out to liquidity providers and stakers; the DAO treasury earns from AMM market-making fees and liquidity mining incentives such as Sushi Onsen. The DAO's treasury was described as sufficient to fund the core team for roughly 18 months without additional revenue.
Traction
The site reports cumulative totals of 140.73 ETH total volume, 224 NFTs traded and 120 assets, with listed vault liquidity of 325.26 ETH for CryptoPunks, 55.09 ETH for Milady, 34.75 ETH for Lil Pudgys, 3.3 ETH for Stackers and 2.64 ETH for Cash Cats.
βΈFull profile β market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history, risks & controversies
Market position
NFTX positions itself as a liquidity layer for NFTs, bridging illiquid NFT collections into DeFi composability. Its vault tokens are used across DeFi venues including SushiSwap, Uniswap and Balancer, and the DAO's own deep liquidity positions β including in the CryptoPunks vault β are cited as a basis for the protocol's role in bringing high-value NFTs to DeFi.
Rather than an order-book or auction marketplace, NFTX converts collections into fungible tokens that provide immediate floor-price liquidity with no waiting for a counterparty and no slippage on floor-to-floor swaps. Permissionless vault creation, customizable eligibility lists for collection subsets, composability of vault tokens across lending, index and AMM protocols, and features such as trade-ups and partial premium listings distinguish its approach.
Technology
NFTX is a set of fully permissionless on-chain smart contracts on Ethereum. NFTs deposited into vaults are exchanged for fungible ERC20 vault tokens; vaults support customizable "eligibility lists" enabling collection subsets (for example CryptoPunk zombies) to be targeted. Contracts were deployed behind an UpgradeabilityProxy so that upgrades can be executed by the NFTX DAO, with changes staged through Aragon subject to a seven-day waiting period. Zaps allow chaining transactions, including bypassing minting fees by automatically adding liquidity. Subgraphs support the app, and contract addresses are published in the documentation. A security audit was performed by LevelK in December 2020, which raised low-level concerns but found no glaring exploits. The marketplace front end remains a private repository, with an NFTX.js SDK planned to let projects build custom storefronts.
Go-to-market
Distribution is through the nftx.org / nftx.io web application, with community-driven channels including Discord, a governance forum at forum.nftx.org, Twitter, GitHub, and open documentation (docs.nftx.io) plus a community-run NFTX Academy. Governance proposals move from Discord discussion to the forum, then to a Snapshot vote requiring more than 10% of circulating non-treasury NFTX to participate and a majority (70% for contract changes) in favor, before being staged on Aragon. The DAO also issues grants to independent teams β for example Hyype, a social platform for NFT owners that integrates NFTX liquidity pools.
Three primary audiences are stated: investors seeking to buy or sell floor-priced NFTs without waiting for a counterparty on a secondary marketplace; arbitrageurs trading price differences between vault tokens and underlying floor prices; and NFT liquidity providers who mint vault tokens to supply liquidity or inventory. Documentation also describes shoppers, stakers and NFT projects wanting to establish a floor price for their collection.
Geography
NFTX operates as a decentralized autonomous organization with anonymous and non-anonymous contributors, without a stated physical headquarters; the protocol runs on Ethereum.
History
Development started in fall 2020 as PunkFund. LevelK audited the contracts in December 2020, and the contracts were deployed using an UpgradeabilityProxy controlled by the DAO. The NFTX DAO was set up in late 2020 using Aragon, first on the Rinkeby testnet and then on Ethereum mainnet. A community raise ran from December 2020 to early January 2021, distributing 390,000 of the 650,000 NFTX governance tokens to early participants who supplied ETH and high-quality NFTs such as CryptoPunks and Autoglyphs, bootstrapping the DAO treasury. In May 2021 the team completed a rebuilt front end for V1 and launched a new homepage at nftx.org, with the prior interface kept at classic.nftx.org, and set a goal of shipping the first version of V2 by 31 May 2021. V2 introduced fee capture and vault-level fee options; V1 vaults were subsequently migrated and placed in redeem-only mode with minting disabled and a V1-to-V2 token migration.
Risks & controversies
During the December 2020 LevelK audit the auditors suggested to the founder that the concept would not work well; the audit continued and surfaced a number of low-level concerns but no glaring exploits. Contracts are upgradeable via the DAO through an UpgradeabilityProxy, and the marketplace front end is closed source, described as a moat. V1 minting has been disabled with vaults in redeem-only mode, requiring holders to migrate tokens to V2.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources β announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed β not independently audited.
Timeline Β· 7
launches, deals, and filingsAfter roughly two months of work, the NFTX Product Squad completed a rebuild of the V1 front-end interface β including improvements to minting, redeeming and vault creation and subgraph integration β and launched a new homepage at nftx.org. The previous V1 interface remained available at classic.nftx.org.
The NFTX DAO awarded a grant to Hyype, an independent project team building a social platform for NFT owners to showcase and share collectibles with trading functionality, including use of NFTX liquidity pools.
Minting was disabled on NFTX V1; the V1 vaults were migrated and placed in redeem-only mode, with a V1-to-V2 token migration made available to holders.
With V1 feature-complete, NFTX moved to V2, a protocol upgrade introducing fee capture on minting and redeeming that shifts NFTX into a revenue-generating DAO. The team targeted shipping the first version of V2 by 31 May 2021, with work on V2 app integrations, V2 subgraph deployment and zaps for chaining transactions. V2 was subsequently released and V1 to V2 token migration went live.
From December 2020 to early January 2021, NFTX ran an origin "community raise" in which 390,000 of the 650,000 total NFTX governance tokens were distributed to early participants through open bounties at various rates of ETH as well as several NFTs, including high-quality assets such as CryptoPunks and Autoglyphs. The proceeds bootstrapped the NFTX DAO treasury, which is largely used for liquidity provision on SushiSwap.
Founder Alex Gausman hired LevelK to audit the NFTX contract in December 2020. The audit raised a number of low-level concerns but found no glaring exploits, and was publicized before the contracts were deployed behind an UpgradeabilityProxy controlled by the NFTX DAO.
The NFTX DAO was set up in late 2020 using Aragon, first on the Rinkeby testnet and later on Ethereum mainnet. It controls the treasury assets and the ability to upgrade the NFTX protocol contracts.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
βΈResearch sources Β· 8
primary sources listed
- NFTXnftx.org Β· web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does NFTX do?
- NFTX is an Ethereum protocol that turns NFT collections into ERC20 vault tokens to provide instant floor-price liquidity.
- Who are NFTX's investors?
- NFTX's investors include Narcissus Ventures.