NFTs are now the latest trend that has caused a still in the art world. Whether you like it or hate it, the concept proves that digital ownership has real demand, and some are willing to pay a huge premium for it.
With that in mind, here are the most expensive NFTs up to 2024:
The Most Expensive NFTs to Date
It’s difficult to gather all the data on the world’s most expensive NFTS, because the data is always changing, and it is such a new industry.
Cryptopunk
The Most Expensive NFT is Worth $532 Million (Kind Of)
However, in 2021, an NFT called Cryptopunk sold for $532 million. What’s interesting about this NFT is that there are a lot of people that speculate on various social media networks that this isn’t actually the real most expensive NFT in the world, but rather a publicity stunt, in order to be able to inflate the value of NFTs.
Cryptopunk was the NFT that sold for this much, and it is one of three thousand. What’s fascinating about this entire transaction is that the NFT in question is being sold again.
The Merge
The Real Most Expensive?
So, if you take publicity stunts and put them aside for a moment, we believe that the most expensive NFT that has ever been sold was The Merge which sold for almost $92 million.
To be specific, it sold for $91.8 million. This transaction was a lot more legitimate than the sale of Cryptopunk, but what’s troubling about it is that people argue over whether it can be considered one artwork, or a number of different artworks.
This is because it wasn’t sold to just one buyer, there were multiple buyers.
The price per coin started at $575 and increased every couple of hours. At the end, the coins were sold to over 30,000 purchasers for a total of $91.8 million.
Beeple – the First 5000 Days
One of the most expensive NFTs to date is The First 5000 Days by Beeple, one of the most popular NFT artists in the world.
The work seems like a collage as it combines 5000 pieces of art, one created for each day of his career. The auction for the piece was held by Sotheby’s and Beeple became one of the highest valued living artists globally once the bidding was concluded.
The piece was eventually sold for a total of 42329,5 ETH, or $69 million. The final stretch for the acquisition of the piece was held between Justin Tron, founder of TRX, and Metakovan, founder of Lendroid and Portkey Technologies.
Finally, the winning bid was awarded to Metakovan (real name Vignesh Sundaresan).
Note that Beeple has several more art pieces that have really high valuations and should thus be part of this list. These include Ocean Front, which sold for $6 million, and Crossroads, which sold for $6.6 million.
CryptoPunk 7523
CryptoPunks are the “Rolex of NFTs” as they are often seen as status symbols for wealthy investors. Being one of the earliest NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain, all 10,000 of them are now valued at a high price.
However, some CryptoPunks are more valuable than others, and the rarest one was recently sold for $11.75 million in a Sotheby’s auction.
CryptoPunk 7523 is not just an Alien Punk, which is the rarest type of the series, as there are only 9 of them available. It also wears a mask, a symbol which increased in importance during the past two years. It is therefore that Punk 7532 is known as the “Covid Alien”.
The anonymous seller, only known as Sillytuna, mentioned that the Punk, which has been in his possession for the past few years had become part of his identity, and was struggling to make the sale.
Bidding eventually started at $1.5 million dollars with final estimations ranging between $7 and $9 million. The final sale, as mentioned above, set the buyer back $11.75. Shalom Mackenzie, the largest shareholder of DraftKings was the winning bidder.
NFT of Horny Copia 721
This NFT is somewhat strange, as it is simply an image that points to the artwork of a popular NFT artist, who was also the final buyer of the piece.
The NFT artist placed a winning bid of $10 million for a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain that offers him ownership of another smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain that makes him the owner of a version of his own work of digital art. Read that again!
The buyer, Pierre E. Madskem purchased the NFT from an anonymous NFT art collector known by the pseudonym of Mierre E. Padskem. Since this is the first time and NFT pointing to another NFT is minted and sold at this price many believe that the two people are actually the same, but there is no viable way to confirm it.
CryptoPunk 7804
Another alien punk sold at Sotheby’s by Larva Labs was Punk 7804. The punk brought in a surprising 4200 ETH or $7,57 million at the time of the sale. Note the auction occurred in March 2021, a period during which many thought the NFT market had passed its peak.
So who is the proud new owner of punk 7804? That would be Dylan Field, CEO of Figma, a visual design unicorn company currently valued at $2 billion.
The tech founder turned NFT collector labels the punk as a “digital Mona Lisa” of the Metaverse and believes that his investment will increase in value over time, as the reputation and price of Ethereum rise as well.
Stay Free (Edward Snowden)
One more item that belongs to the list is an NFT art piece known as Stay Free. The piece is a collection of court documents that indicate how the NSA’s mass surveillance practice violates the law and includes a white-colored portrait of Snowden as an overlay.
The piece was sold for $5.4 million to PleasrDAO, on April 2021, and the proceeds were donated to Freedom of the Press Foundation.
While not the most expensive piece of this list, this particular art piece made front-page news, which in turn exposed the NFT world to more retail investors. Thus, the sale of this item has a positive impact on the market as a whole.
Conclusion
The crypto markets are “buzzing” with retail, corporations and now countries looking to hoard Bitcoin.
But crypto is so much more than just a financial service, and Ethereum has proven this by creating a place for digital art, with NFTs being the biggest thing right now.
