NFTs have a lot to talk about throughout 2021 and it looks like they won’t miss this new year. They started the year as some unknown technology, and in less than 365 days there is no one left who doesn’t know what they are.
Do you want to know which non-fungible tokens have the most million dollar sales to date? These are the ten most expensive NFTs ever sold. However, taking into account the trend, it is possible that in a matter of weeks, we will change this ranking.
1. Cryptocurrency #3100
Get used to seeing these pixelated faces—CryptoPunks sells many of the most expensive NFTs.
They are a randomly generated set of 10,000 unique digital characters, and are some of the first examples of non-fungible tokens issued. Ethereum blockchain. They were developed by Matt Hall and John Watkinson from the American game studio Larva Labs.
Initially given out for free, some cryptopunks with particularly rare or desirable features have gone on to sell for significant sums—such as Cryptopunk #3100, an alien sporting a headband, which sold 4,200 ETH ($7.6 million) in March 2021. million) was sold.
2. Cryptocurrency #7804
Dylan Field, CEO of design software company Figma, is behind the sale of the second most expensive NFT in history – Cryptopunk #7804. NFT sold 4,200 ETH in March 2021, valued at $7.5 million.
One of just nine “alien” cryptopunks, it also sports three accessories, a forward cap and shades, and a pipe (in fact, it is the only alien cryptopunk with a pipe or forward cap).
3. Ocean front NFT
Artist Mike Winkelman aka Beeple aims to end climate change. This is exactly his illustration, which was auctioned at Nifty Ocean Front. The money went to the Open Earth Foundation. However, as we will see later, climate change is one of its objectives, as it is not its only NFT that we are going to see in this ranking.
4. Crossroad
From the same artist and on the same platform, Crossroads was sold, although $6.6 million would later go to an unknown user in resale. Crossroads was designed to “change NFTs based on who wins the 2020 US presidential election”. When Biden won, the image became the naked body of former President Trump, defeated and filled with graffiti.
5. World Wide Web Source Code
World Wide Web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee surprised many when he announced that he planned to sell the NFTs representing the original source code of the Web at an auction at Sotheby’s. Critics complained that selling the Web’s source code to a single person went against the decentralized nature of the Web; In turn, Berners-Lee argued that it was “perfectly aligned with the values of the Web”.
Of course, this is not (actually) the source code of the Web—which is open source and in the public domain, and thus freely available for viewing and copying. Rather, it is an artistic representation of the source code, a bundle of artifacts packaged together in an NFT. In any case, sales went ahead with the NFT, titled “This Changes Everything”, selling for $5.4 million. A few days later, someone noticed a coding error in the artwork.
6. Cryptocurrency #2338
Cryptopunk, the third on our list, sold for $4.4 million in August 2021; In one of the more surprising examples of return on investment, it was bought by its previous owner in November 2018 for just $443 (2018 ETH), meaning they made just shy of a 1,000,000% return in less than three years.
Punk itself is one of 10,000 zombies in 88 Cryptopunks’ entire run, and one of just four zombies with the thin Mohawk trait, making it a rare specimen indeed.
7. Replicator
This NFT comes with a unique twist. As its name suggests, the Replicator, a digital artwork by Micah “Mad Dog Jones” Bobak, makes copies of itself. Self-replicating NFTs spits out potentially hundreds of types of NFTs which can then be sold by the owner.
That exclusivity was not lost on the artwork’s buyer, who bought it at auction for over $4.1 million in April 2021.
8. Fidenza
While the likes of Cryptopunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club are making headlines, Ethereum-based generative art collection Art Blocks is quietly racking up hundreds of millions of dollars in trading volume. In August 2021, it marked its biggest single NFT sale to date, with Fidenza #313 by Tyler Hobbs changing hands for 1,000 ETH ($3.3 million at the time of purchase). The seller bought it two months ago for 0.58 ETH (approximately $1,400) for a return on investment of over 235,000%.
This isn’t the only fidenza piece to have sold for north of $1 million; Three other works from the collection, which yielded a unique piece composed of colored rectangles and squares, have traded hands for seven-figure sums. The Art Blocks project generated a total of $300 million in trading volume in August 2021 alone.
9. EtherRock 70
In the latest NFT craze, shoppers inspired by the pet rock toy craze of the 1970s are snapping up JPEG images of cartoon rocks. The price of EtherRocks has soared, with one example—the EtherRock 70, a fine mid-grey sample—selling for over 420 ETH, or just over $1.33 million. Created back in 2017, EtherRocks is practically ancient history by NFT standards, consisting of a series of just 100 illustrations of rocks taken from a royalty-free clip art database.
Unlike many other NFTs, EtherRocks have no purpose (for example, they cannot be used in a game) and there are no special features to differentiate them. Indeed, JPEG metadata is not actually stored, so ownership of the NFT does not necessarily have a permanent relationship to the image.
One NFT collector who owns two EtherRocks told Decrypt the fact that they are so “completely useless” is “a classic example of Flex”.
10. Destination HΞXAGONIA
Billed as “the world’s first concert NFT”, Destination Hexagonia includes a one-hour set by Dutch EDM DJ Don Diabolo, who collaborated with videographer Paul Snijder to create a “next-level sci-fi animated live concert experience”. It sold for 600 ETH ($1.26 million) in April 2021, in an auction that lasted only four minutes. At the time, it set the record for NFT marketplace SuperRare’s highest-priced single item NFT sale. As well as NFT, the buyer received a hand-crafted box containing the hard drive with the only copy of the virtual concert.
