2021 has been the year of the non-fungible token (NFT). These digital collectibles have exploded onto the scene with collections immortalizing anything from artwork to video clips and music, and even as supplementary tokens for blockchain-based games. While some NFTs are minted at prices around 0.2 ETH, the popularity of these tokens is regularly being auctioned off for well over US$100,000, with collections regularly being worth millions of dollars.
With the NFT industry moving at a quick pace, it is hard to understand how inventive some collections are becoming. In this article we’ll go over some of the most expensive and creative NFTs to have been released so far – and see just how far people have gone to own a piece of digital history.
Bored Ape Yacht Club
The most popular non-fungible tokens on the market right now are the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC). It is an art collection dripping with urban steeze – each token features a cartoon primate with different traits such as its clothes, colour, and accessories. Holders gain access to a members-only club as well as access to a community “graffiti board,” dubbed by the developers as ‘THE BATHROOM.’ At its inception, BAYC was much different from other NFT projects at the time, featuring high-fidelity artwork with unique visuals. With only 10,000 tokens being minted, the exclusivity of the club has led to the possession of a Bored Ape as something of a symbol of digital social status. When you look on the market to see just how much Bored Apes are auctioning for, you’ll understand why.
The Bored Ape Yacht Club represents some of the market’s most expensive NFTs sold; two Bored Ape NFTs lots containing 101 NFTs sold for a whopping US$26 million at Sotheby’s auction house, setting a record for crypto-art for the company. Its popularity is such that even two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry hopped on the train and purchased a Bored Ape valued at $180,000. It would make sense that on the open market, you would be hard-pressed to find any BAYC NFT lower than $150,000.
As of October 2021, BAYC is the 8th most popular NFT on CryptoSlam, with around $550 million in total sales.
CryptoPunks
It is almost impossible to talk about non-fungible tokens without mentioning CryptoPunks. Originally released by Larva Labs in June of 2017 as one of the first non-fungible tokens on the Ethereum blockchain, CryptoPunks is one of the industry’s most enduring NFT collections. Like BAYC, CryptoPunks consists of 10,000 unique characters. Using a retro, 8-bit style, Larva Labs designed each pixelated character to be generated with different variations on hairstyle, skin tones, and accessories. The collectible appeal is that certain variations have different rarities, and CryptoPunks was perhaps the first to make this style of NFT popular. For a time, CryptoPunks was fueled by a small, passionate community, and its NFT collection was originally released for free.
That was, up until this year. CryptoPunks now accounts for some of the most expensive NFTs ever sold – three of the five most valuable NFTs of all time belong to the CryptoPunks collection (Cryptopunk 7523, Cryptopunk 7804, and Cryptopunk 3100). Cryptopunk 7523 was auctioned for over US$11 million in June, Cryptopunk 7804 was sold for $7.57 million in March, and Cryptopunk 3100 was sold for $7.58 million the same month. Despite Larva Labs being virtually unknown for nearly 4 years, to say that CryptoPunks is enjoying a surge in popularity would be a massive understatement. With a total of nearly $1.5 billion in sales and with individual punks regularly fetching over $300,000, the collection is one of the most valuable in the entire NFT space and is currently the 5th most popular NFT on CryptoSlam.
EtherRocks
Remember having a pet rock as a kid? EtherRocks brings your childhood friend into the NFT space, except that there were only 100 of these NFTs minted. Like CryptoPunks, EtherRocks is one of the oldest NFT projects, having launched in December 2017 on Ethereum. And, like many of the NFTs that launched during that time, it features simple clip art of different coloured rocks.
For a long while, the EtherRocks project was relatively unknown – they only sold 30 of them for the first three years of the project’s existence, with the first one being sold for about $300. When the NFT craze rolled around this year, EtherRocks consequently exploded with popularity. While the concept is rather simple, the prevailing attractiveness of these tokens is the scarcity. As there were only 100 made, collectors scrambled to get their hands on them. In August, one EtherRock was sold for 400 ETH, equivalent to $1.3 million at the time! After this sale, the floor price for a single EtherRock was raised to, at minimum, 300 ETH.
Despite its simplicity, and that even the creators saying that EtherRocks served no real purpose beyond being sold and bought, the project will continue to be some of the most expensive and coveted digital collectibles on the web.
Art Blocks Curated
Art Blocks is a platform that focuses on curation of generative NFT artwork, working like a traditional art or auction house. What is unique about them is that all the images are created through the Ethereum blockchain; the artist creates an algorithm and deploys it on Ethereum, developing the art style before locking in the code. Unlike other NFT collections, which focus on a single project and variations on that project, the team behind Art Blocks find the best pieces from their artists and mint the work as an NFT. Most of the collections released through Art Blocks are heavily vetted and releases often garner a large amount of attention and price.
Because of their uniqueness and parallels with modern contemporary art, curated collections have become an overwhelmingly hot commodity in the NFT space. For example, the Fidenza collection released by digital artist Tyler Hobbs, comprised of 999 artwork NFTs, had a single piece sell on the market for a whopping 1,000 ETH, equivalent to $3.3 million during the time of sale and one of the most expensive NFTs ever sold. Hobbs’ works now fetch easily over 150 ETH per token. Monica Rizzolli’s Fragments of an Infinite Field collection, comprised of 1,024 pieces minted at a starting price of 10 ETH, sold out within an hour – netting $5.3 million on the opening sale alone.
Axie Infinity
Axie Infinity takes the concept long introduced by CryptoKitties and turns the dial up to 100. Inspired by the original critter collector Pokémon, this project combines collectible NFT pets with real active gameplay, representing the most successful blockchain-based gaming projects. Available to play on mobile and PC, the game allows players to collect creatures called Axies, each with their own individual skills. You then pit your creatures against computer AI or other players to raise them. Each Axie is identifiable as a unique NFT. Through playing the game you can earn tokens to mint or breed more creature NFTs.
While a single Axie is not nearly as expensive as some of the other NFTs featured on this list (average price for an Axie is around US$300), there are some select, ultra-rare tokens that have sold for considerable amounts of money. In late 2020 for example, an Axie known as “Angel” was sold for 300 ETH, at the time worth $130,000. A piece of in-game real estate was sold for 888 ETH in February, worth about $1.5 million and was, at the time, the most expensive NFT transaction on record.
Axie Infinity has topped the NFT sales charts on CryptoSlam for a while and eclipsed over US$2 billion in total sales last month. Sky Mavis, the developer behind the project, raised $152 million at a $3 billion valuation to help further grow the game.
MekaVerse
The newest NFT craze to hit the market has been MekaVerse. After nearly a year of development, the project released earlier this month to an incredible amount of hype – and for good reason. MekaVerse is a collection of 8,888 unique tokens, all variations of different robots known as ‘Mekas.’ The difference is that each Meka is handcrafted in pseudo-3D with high-fidelity artwork by digital artists Matt Braccini and Mattey, leading to some of the most gorgeous NFTs to have hit the market. Heavily inspired by Gundam, these digital collectibles have the same appeal as the aforementioned buildable models, taking the nostalgic robot designs and giving them a modern spin.
This project was one of the most anticipated NFT sales of the year. The initial mint sold out before buyers were even able to see what their mechas looked like, as they had to join a raffle with over 170,000 other people for a chance to purchase one of these tokens. Within a day the project had already racked up over $60 million in sales between the initial mint and secondary market. Only two days after release, a single Meka is now being sold for an average of 6.5 ETH, according to CryptoSlam.
Other Individual NFTs
While there have been some incredibly valuable NFT collections, some of the most expensive NFTs of all time are one-off pieces of digital artwork or digital history pieces.
Everydays – The First 5000 Days
The most expensive non-fungible token sold to date at around US$69.3 million (or about 39,000 ETH at the time), Everydays is an art piece created by digital artist Beeple, known by his real name Mike Winkelmann. It is a collage of 5000 images that that he created for his ‘Everydays’ project. The project consisted of creating a piece of digital art every day for 5000 days, hence the name, which he began on May 1, 2007. Arranged in chronological order, the images depict pop culture relevant at each point in time, with some being hand drawn and others produced through digital effects.
It was eventually purchased by Singaporean programmer MetaKovan through Christie’s auction house and is one of the most expensive works of art ever created by a living artist.
Stay Free
Edward Snowden, America’s most famous exiled whistleblower, created this piece by collaging together pages of the famous US appeals court decision that ruled that the NSA was indeed conducting mass surveillance on the American people. This NFT resold for $5.5 million and is among the most expensive NFTs ever sold, but Snowden made sure that the proceeds went towards the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
Doge
Everybody’s favourite shiba inu has been immortalized on the internet for nearly a decade, culminating in a timeless internet meme, multiple cryptocurrencies using its likeness, and more recently, an NFT. The original photo of Kabosu, the global shiba inu phenomenon, was made into an NFT by its owner and sold for 1,696 ETH in June, marking the meme as one of the most expensive NFTs ever sold.
The First Tweet
The first ever Twitter tweet made by creator Jack Dorsey, and by extension the platform’s first tweet ever, posted on May 6, 2006, was sold as an NFT for 1630 ETH in March earlier this year. This is one of the shining examples of non-fungible tokens being used to immortalize internet history, and why NFTs are so important to the industry.
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