Counting the 10 most expensive NFTs in history

Over the past year, NFTs have risen to the top of the cryptocurrency space. These cryptographically unique tokens make it possible to create real-world scarcity for digital items, and artists have seized the opportunity presented by this technology. Ordinary people are also interested in NFTs, with Google keyword searches reaching an all-time high, and NFT marketplaces such as Nifty Gateway and OpenSea seeing record trading volumes as everyone wants to get a glimpse of what this emerging asset market looks like.

After months of silence, NFTs have seen a new round of explosive growth, with sales of nearly $900 million so far in August, marking the industry's highest sales month ever, according to NFT data tracking company NonFungible. It's not an exaggeration to call 2021 the "golden year" for NFTs, as nine of the ten most expensive NFT collections have sold in the past six months, with many individual NFTs selling for more than $1 million, and the most expensive one selling for nearly $70 million. This article will show you the ten most expensive NFTs ever sold, and let you judge their true value.

1. Everydays: The First 5000 Days: $69.3 Million

The most expensive NFT ever sold (and one of the most expensive works of art ever) is “Everydays: The First 5000 Days: $69.3 Million,” created by renowned digital artist Mike “Beeple” Winkelmann, which sold for $69.3 million at Christie’s. It also set another record, becoming the first time the venerable auction house sold a purely digital work of art.

The NFT combines 5,000 pieces of Beeple’s early artwork and is a perfect showcase for his career as an artist.

The buyer of the work was Vignesh "Metakovan" Sundaresan, who initially chose to remain anonymous but later chose to reveal his identity. Metakovan explained: "I did this to show Indians and people of color that they can also be patrons, and that cryptocurrency represents an equal force that is rising globally."

The second highest bidder for the work at the auction was Tron CEO and founder Justin Sun, who bid a whopping $60.2 million, but it was snapped up by Sundaresan at the last second.

2. CryptoPunk #7523: $11.8 million

CryptoPunks is a set of 10,000 randomly generated unique NFTs, one of the first NFTs released on the Ethereum blockchain. And it is these simple pixel avatars that have set one expensive NFT sales record after another.

This batch of NFTs was developed by Matt Hall and John Watkinson of Larva Labs, an American game studio. Initially, they were given away completely for free, which means that as long as you have an Ethereum wallet, you can get one CryptoPunks. And some CryptoPunks with rare features or social hot spots have now sold for a lot of money. "CryptoPunk #7523", which ranks second on the list, happens to have multiple special properties. First, it is one of the rare nine Alien punks. Secondly, in this era affected by the epidemic, its mask attribute also makes it uniquely time-effective, which is one of the reasons why it was bought by DraftKings' major shareholder Shalom Meckenzie at Sotheby's "Natively Digital" auction for a whopping $11.8 million.

Meckenzie said in an interview, "I really want this special CryptoPunk. It is part of the alien series, the rarest Punk, and the only alien wearing a mask. I think it symbolizes that NFT can eventually achieve 'viral' popularity."

3. CryptoPunk #7523: $7.56 million

Dylan Field, CEO of design software company Figma, bought the third most expensive NFT in history, “CryptoPunk #7523”. The NFT was sold for 4,200 ETH in March 2021, which was worth $7.56 million at the time (now about $13.23 million).

It is also one of the rare nine Alien punks, and it also has three unique attributes, a peaked cap and sunglasses, as well as a pipe, and it is the only Alien punk to have a pipe or a peaked cap.

4. CryptoPunk #7523: $7.51 million

As written in the first paragraph, CryptoPunk almost dominated this list. Another Alien punk, "CryptoPunk #7523" Alien punk with a sports headband, sold for 4,200 ETH ($7.51 million) in March 2021.

5. CROSSROAD: $6.66 million

CROSSROAD is another work by Beeple. It features anti-Trump content, with a giant Trump lying in a pile of garbage, covered in profanity and graffiti. However, another feature of the work is that it will show a different picture depending on the election results. If Trump wins, the painting will become him wearing a crown and striding through the flames. The work was traded on the Nifty Gateway market, and the trader was the original owner of the NFT (Twitter user Pablorfraile) and an anonymous buyer. Interestingly, Pablorfraile bought this NFT four months ago, and the selling price is 10 times its original price.

6. Ocean Front: $6.66 million

In March 2021, Justin Sun bought Beeple's new NFT work, "Ocean Front", and paid $6 million for it. Lest you think that NFT is just self-hype by cryptocurrency billionaires, the money ended up being used for a good place; the profits from the auction went to a nonprofit organization, the Open Earth Foundation, which aims to track the progress of the Paris Agreement on global climate change.

7. CryptoPunk #5217: $5.44 million

As one of the 24 Ape Punks, "CryptoPunk #5217" wears a knitted hat and a gold chain and was sold for US$5.44 million in July 2021.

8. This Changes Everything: $5.4 million

Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, surprised many people when he announced that he planned to sell NFTs representing the original source code of the network at a Sotheby's auction. This move has aroused a lot of opposition, including some who said that selling the source code of the network to one person violates the principle of decentralization of the network; while Berners-Lee believes that this is "completely consistent with the value of the network."

Of course, this is not the actual web source code, as the web source code itself is open source and public property, and therefore can be freely viewed and copied. Instead, it is an artistic representation of the source code, a bundle of artwork wrapped in an NFT. The auction went smoothly, and the NFT, called "This Changes Everything," was eventually sold for $5.4 million. Anecdotally, a few days after the auction was completed, someone discovered a coding error in the artwork.

9. CryptoPunk #5217: $5.44 million

The last owner of "CryptoPunk #5217" (a Zombie Punk with a beard, gold earrings, and crazy hair) bought the Punk for $2.5 million in early August 2021, but it only took them (him) a few weeks to double their money; it was sold on August 24 for 1,600 ETH (about $5.33 million).

10. Stay Free: $5.27 million

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden also joined the NFT market in April 2021, creating and auctioning a digital artwork called "Stay Free." The work depicts a silhouette of a pensive Snowden against the backdrop of a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling, the Patriot Act, which does not allow the NSA to collect and monitor Americans' phone records on a large scale.

Snowden sold the work on the community-driven NFT marketplace Foundation for a whopping $5.4 million, with the proceeds going to the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit advocating for free speech, a free press, and public interest journalism. Perhaps more interesting than the price paid, however, is who bought it. The buyer of the NFT was PleasrDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that was created to acquire "culturally significant charitable works" on behalf of its investors. It's an example of an investment DAO, a new type of non-hierarchical organization used to pool resources for investment.