Here’s a list of the five most expensive NFTs from history.
In the last two years, non-fungible tokens (NFTsConversations about crypto (and specifically NFTs) account for a large portion of the conversations. Talks about the most expensive NFTs, digital artworks, are growing in popularity. Some are selling for several million dollars. Two of the recent ‘NFT craze’ here in Africa are the Baba Onilu picture and Coffin Dance video sales. The question is, apart from NFTs being sold at insane prices, which NFTs are the most expensive ever? Let’s take a look.
The Merge
The Merge is the NFT that sold for the highest price. It was developed by PAK, and sold on Nifty Gateway for $91.8m in December 2021. The image itself is composed of large white masses (dots), against a black background. It was sold to 28983 collectors who bought 312,686 units mass (which were single-NFTs). These units were $575 at the beginning, and then increased by $25 each six hours.
The larger the mass, the more mass buyers would accumulate. The NFT incorporates a scarcity mechanism which ensures that token supply drops over time. Every Merge token that is transferred combines with the token in the recipient wallet. This results in a higher mass and one token. It has been disputed whether it is the highest-priced NFT to sell, as it has more than one owner. But it is our favorite NFT.
The First 5000 Days
It is the second-most expensive NFT ever sold and the most expensive NFT to be sold to a single owner. It was created by Beeple as a collage of 5000 individual NFTs in the Everyday’s series.
It was sold to Vignesh Sundersan and the pseudonymous MetaKovan at Christies Auction House, February 21st 2021 for $69m. Beeple committed to creating one piece of art each day since 2007, and the NFT collage is made of 5000 of his pieces. That uniqueness coupled with the fact that Beeple’s artworks are top-notch made it that expensive.
Clock
The third-most expensive NFT ever made is Clock. It was created by anonymous artist — Pak and was sold to 10,000 people for $52.7m in February 2022. Clock NFT has a fascinating story. It was created to raise funds for Julian Assange’s legal defence after he was controversially imprisoned in May 2019. Assange is currently being held on charges of spying against the US Government.
The digital artwork literally acts like a real clock, counting the days that the WikiLeaks founder — Assange has been imprisoned. It was ultimately purchased by AssangeDAO — a collection of over 10,000 people pooling their money to purchase the NFT and support Assange. Each one owns a part of the NFT. 100% of the proceeds went to the Wau Holland Foundation, which supports Assange’s defence.
Human One
This is the 4th most costly and the 2nd Beeple created NFT to be featured in this list. Human One was auctioned at Christie’s 21st Century Evening Sale on November 9, 2021 for $28.9m.
Beeple created Human One, a hybrid digital/physical artwork. It is a life-generative art that features an astronaut walking through shifting environments. It is said that the inspiration for the piece came from experiments combining multiple TV’s into different shapes and patterns. Beeple claims that the NFT has an interesting feature. He says it can change and that he will keep it updated in the future to ensure it does not remain static. 5. CryptoPunk #5822 This was the fifth-most expensive NFT ever sold in history. CryptoPunk, an NFT-collection on the Ethereum blockchain. CryptoPunk #5822The internet went crazy when the item was purchased for $23.7M on February 12, 2022.
It is very rare to find the NFT. It is rare, as only 2% of the collection has this one attribute. It is the only one in the collection to have a bandana. CryptoPunk #5822 This is part of the Alien Skin, which is the rarest skin possible (0.09% chance). This CryptoPunk is incredibly expensive due to its many rare attributes. There have been multiple bids of over 1000 ETH (~$3m) throughout the token’s life cycle. These have been all denied by the owner. The owner — 0xDeepak has listed it for tens of thousands of ETH on multiple occasions but it has not been collected.
Conclusion
NFTs are increasingly influential in the digital age. Digital artwork has no limit at the moment. If you start solid projects early and luck is with you, you could make a fortune.
