55
With the NFT boom that sparked in 2021, it’s hard to believe that non-fungible tokens have been around since 2017. And as it usually happens, the craze seems to have come out of nowhere, but the grounds for it had been shaping for several years.
NFTs are unique digital artworks or game items stored on a blockchain. Most of them have been minted on Ethereum and BINANCE Smart Chain, whereas Colored Coins based on Bitcoin’s blockchain are often considered NFT predecessors.
There is a popular meme that makes fun of people paying millions to own NFTs while you can simply copy the picture and store it on your computer. But the deal here is like with real-world artworks: you can make a copy of Mona Lisa and hang it in your house, but you will never be able to dispose of the original. Owning an NFT is like owning a Mona Lisa but in a digital world.
Let’s look at some outstanding NFTs that rocked the cryptocurrency world. You can easily find lists of the top expensive tokens ever sold, but we decided to make up a more subjective collection based on the influence an NFT has had in the market. Some of the units are less known but are of a great artistic or conceptual value. Now, let’s dig in!
#1. Quantum
is the world’s first NFT minted in 2014 — three years before the very term was coined. The token was created on the Namecoin blockchain using an NFT-like technology.
The artwork was very little-known back then. It was created by Kevin McCoy, an artist who exhibits in the Metropolitan Museum and other renowned cultural institutions. Quantum depicts a very subtle matter, “the moment of creation”. It’s an “allegory for a universe, its revolutions, breath and winking into being out of nothingness.” The octagon filled with circles and arcs changing their shape and color in a 5-second video is quite a meditative thing to watch.
Quantum was sold in 2021 for $1.47 million
#2 The Batman Genesis
is a creation of Argentinian DC comic artists Jose Delbo and Trevor Jones. 5 animated paintings of the Dark Knight are accompanied by music. Delbo created the pencil basis, and Trevor finished it with oil. The entire process was shot in photos, and the NFT is a minute-long animation that puts these pictures together. The unit was purchased for $111 thousand and is currently on sale for $26.4 million.
#3. Everydays: The First 5000 Days
We said we’ve made this list without special attention to the prices at which NFTs were sold, but it will be definitely incomplete without the most expensive NFT that has ever existed. In 2007, an American digital artist Mike Winkelmann, or Beeple, embarked on a challenge to create one digital artwork a day. Needless to say, there were no NFTs and even blockchain technology those days.
More than 13 years later, Beeple put together all his masterpieces in one picture called Everydays: The First 5000 Days. In March 2021, the artwork was sold at Christie’s for $69 million. The buyer Vignesh Sundaresan said he’d pay even more, because purchasing this piece at such a moment has made him a part of history.
#4. Pak’s The Merge Collection
However, Beeple has a contender in terms of the cost of an NFT. A pseudonymous digital artist Pak has sold 266,455 items within one The Merge collection at almost $92 million total. The platform Nifty Gateway has called it the “largest ever art sale by a living creator.”
The concept of the collection is that it’s split into pieces, and whenever anyone buys 2 or more units, they merge into one NFT. Thus, when there is one owner of all the pieces, the collection will fuse into one token. Currently, there are 27,800 owners of The Merge units.
#5. RTFKT Clone X NFTs
Have you ever struggled with choosing sneakers? Worry no more — the company called RTFKT founded in January 2020 has created an NFT collection Clone X that allows you to make your own sneaker design and turn it into a real-world pair of shoes.
Moreover, you can use the sneakers in the digital world, too — in Fortnite 3D and some other online games. Users seemed to have liked the idea and bought digital sneakers worth $3 million in just 7 minutes. That was a deal with quite a consequence — Nike got inspired and acquired RTFKT in December 2021.
#6. Crossroad
This is the second digital artwork by Beeple that has made it to our list. Crossroad depicts a huge naked man all covered with curse words who is lying on the ground surrounded by a pile of garbage. If you’ve recognized Donald Trump by his blonde hair, you are right — the artwork was created following the 2020 Presidential race in the USA, and there were two options of what it could look like. If Trump would have won, the NFT would depict him in a victorious look. But as he lost, we see a blue Twitter bird landing on his body with a bubble speech showing an emoji of a clown.
Crossroad was sold for $6.6 million in February 2021.
#7. Alice Aletha AI iNFT
A new trend in NFT is the use of AI technology to create digital artworks. Alethea AI is the company that makes such designs. Their iNFTs are unique digital personalities to whom you may talk and allow them to learn about you.
Noah’s Ark is a created by Alethea AI where its iNFTs live. Users can train their AI avatars and compete with each other in intellectual battles using them. It is expected that iNFTs are now laying the ground for new blockchain-based games. Alice iNFT was sold in 2021 for $470.000 in Sotheby’s.
#8. Bored Ape Yacht Club
Bored Ape Yacht Club is one of the NFT collections that shook the crypto world in 2021. It features 10,000 colorful apes that wear fancy clothes and various accessories. Apes were especially loved by celebrities who were massively buying the tokens: among such, there were NBA stars Stephen Curry and comedian Jimmy Fallon.
Bored Ape #2087 whose picture we placed above displays a trippy-looking creature with quite an angry look and a cigarette in his mouth. The lot was sold for 769 ETH in September 2021.
#9. World of Women NFTs
The world of NFT does not only feature AI-generated subjects, apes, and fantastic characters. It also praises the diversity and beauty of people, and his collection called World of Women is a good example. 10,000 digital artworks were sold out within just 10 hours. While some were purchased for just several ETH, others like the Night Goddess #6025 that we feature above was auctioned off for 200 ETH in January 2022.
#10. Meka #2194
in a collection of 8,888 NFTs that consists of digital robots inspired by the Japan Mecha universes. Each piece is equipped with different sorts of weapons and is drawn in different colors.
The picture shows Meka #2194 — a carbon samurai who was sold on OpenSea for 500 ETH. Like other collections, MekaVerse robots inspired the community to go beyond the NFT marketplace and create the physical collectibles using a 3D printer. Later, we may even see these samurais in cartoons and animated movies.
Bottom Line
NFTs have taken over the world with an unprecedented speed. In the middle of 2020, they were a very niche interest, while in 2021, their massive adoption sparked. Following enthusiastic individuals, large companies involved in the digital art industry, and the most interesting artworks are being sold at the biggest auction houses like Christie’s and Sotheby’s together with century-old paintings.
Another major trend is the widening of NFT use cases. From simple digital artworks, we’ve come to pieces that you can 3D-print in real life or even make them an element of your wardrobe. Many domains such as NFT land in metaverses weren’t even covered in this article. So, who knows — maybe in just several years and even months, the list of the Top 10 NFTs will look completely different.
