During its initial release, 10,000 CryptoPunks were sold and made it to the secondary market before users discovered a critical smart contract exploit that made it possible for Punks' buyers to withdraw their Ether (ETH) post-purchase. As a result, creator Larva Labs withdrew recognition of the v1 collection, fixed the exploit and released the v2 Punks collection we have now. Though, they've also sent mixed messages about the collection by selling off dozens of their own V1 Punks.
The battle over the copyright of the CryptoPunks v1 collection is heating up as the images recently gained in market value, with Larva Labs filing a DMCA take-down notice to OpenSea and members of the v1 community striking back with their own. To complicate the matter, Larva Labs purposefully coded the smart contract to be irrevocable, and one collection (v1) could not have been destroyed without also eliminating the other (v2). The topic remains deeply controversial within both communities.