Eight flagship collections, one per artist. One rules-based methodology. A four-year backtest read straight through the rolling crash of digital art, and an honest comparison with the asset these works are priced in.
As MoMA takes CryptoPunks and Chromie Squiggles into its permanent collection, we publish the index of the works the institutions are validating, and we lead with the number that hurts.
The Canon 8 never joined the 2022 bubble. At the April 2022 peak the broad NFT market traded at twice its January level; the index did not exceed its starting value until the first quarter of 2024. Having never inflated, it had far less to surrender, and it recovered above its base twice, reaching an all-time high of 123.6 in September 2025.
Against Ethereum, the settlement asset these works are priced in, the index underperformed by roughly four points. We report that plainly. Against its own universe, the total NFT market, it outperformed by 22.7 points. Disciplined selection mattered more than market beta.
| Series | Close, base 100 | Full-period return |
|---|---|---|
| The Canon 8 | 45.1 | −54.9% |
| Ethereum | 49.4 | −50.6% |
| Total NFT market | 22.4 | −77.6% |
Index reconstructed quarterly from 1 January 2022 at base 100, nineteen points. Returns are price returns in USD floor terms. Back-tested figures are not a guarantee of future results.
| № | Work | Artist | Edition | Position | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | CryptoPunks | 25.0%cap | |||
| II | Chromie Squiggle | 16.8% | |||
| III | Autoglyphs | 14.2% | |||
| IV | Fidenza | 12.8% | |||
| V | Grifters | 10.0% | |||
| VI | Everydays 2020 | 8.6% | |||
| VII | Ringers | 6.8% | |||
| VIII | Winds of Yawanawa | 5.8% |
Each work is a single collection with a published floor and a fixed edition, tracked independently. The 25% ceiling is binding on CryptoPunks (No. I): the cap is what keeps the Canon 8 an index of digital art rather than a CryptoPunks proxy. The genesis collection is included as a foundational work and capped, not excluded.
One canonical collection per artist, never an aggregate, so every component is a single trackable object with a fixed edition.
Market-capitalisation weighting under a 25% ceiling and a 5% floor, so no single name can dominate the benchmark.
Art qualification, top-tier standing, institutional validation, cycle resilience, and bucket coverage, applied in sequence.
Quarterly floors read at each period-end, late entrants chained in at their real value, illiquidity disclosed rather than smoothed.
The Canon 8 has no discretionary index committee. Selection and continued membership are anchored to five standing dimensions, applied consistently to every constituent.
The full rules, including the liquidity discount and the bounded canon premium, are set out in the methodology document. The index does not depend on the proprietary premium: ordering and shape are stable across rule sets, and CryptoPunks is capped at 25% in every case.
At the 2022 peak the NFT market doubled while the Canon 8 stayed below its starting value. Lower beta to mania means a shallower fall.
Despite a near-60% initial drawdown, the index closed above 100 in March 2024 and again in September 2025, peaking at 123.6.
The total NFT market lost three-quarters of its value. A disciplined basket of the field's most durable works preserved half.
The index is maintained on a monthly cadence: constituent floors are re-read at each month-end. For licensing or research enquiries, contact research@grail.capital.