STORAGE

The original CryptoPunks contract stores no artwork, only ownership and the marketplace. All the punks live in one composite image kept off chain, and the contract holds only its SHA-256 fingerprint (imageHash) so the image can be verified against the chain.

Larva Labs later deployed a separate CryptopunksData contract (August 2021, from the same wallet that deployed CryptoPunks), which the original contract does not reference. It holds every punk's pixel data and attributes in contract storage (SSTORE), and punkImageSvg() draws a punk as an SVG data URI with punkAttributes() returning its traits, so the artwork is retroactively recoverable on chain.