List of most expensive non-fungible tokens

This is a list of the highest known prices possibly paid for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) representing digital assets.

Background

Monetization of digital assets as NFTs became possible with the release of Etheria, on the Ethereum blockchain, in 2015.[1] From late 2017, the NFT market grew quickly.[2] In the first three months of 2021, NFTs worth US$200 million were traded.[3]

One of the earliest NFT projects, CryptoPunks,[4] has provided several of the most expensive NFTs.[5] There were some NFT-like projects or "proto NFTs" that pre-date CryptoPunks; Rare Pepes, for example, was released on Counterparty in 2014.[citation needed]

The economic insecurity created by the Covid-19 pandemic sharply increased trade in risky investments like NFTs. The highest NFT trading volumes were achieved between August 2021 and May 2022.[6] The large influx of laymen of unsophisticated investors led to a price bubble. Since the height of trade in 2021, buyers returned to more stable investments. Coupled with problems in the crypto currency market like the bankruptcy of FTX and market saturation, most NFTs lost all of their value since the high point in 2021.[7]

List of highest prices paid

This list is ordered by consumer price index inflation-adjusted value (in bold) in millions of United States dollars in 2023.[note 1] Where necessary, the price is first converted to dollars using the exchange rate at the time the NFT was sold. The inflation adjustment may change, as recent inflation rates are often revised. A list in another currency may be in a slightly different order due to exchange-rate fluctuations. NFTs are listed only once, i.e. for the highest price sold. To maintain a manageable size, only NFTs that were sold for an adjusted price of $2 million and above are listed.

Please note that these are the prices that were initially achieved; most of the listed NFTs are basically worthless as of 2024.

Adjusted price
(millions of US$) 		Actual price
paid (millions of US$) 		Asset Year of creation Date of sale Seller Buyer Blockchain Notes
$81.6 $69.3 Everydays: the First 5000 Days 2021 March 11, 2021 Beeple[8] "Metakovan" (Vignesh Sundaresan)[9] Ethereum First purely NFT artwork to be offered by a major auction house, Christie's.[10]
$59.3 $52.8 Clock 2022 February 9, 2022 Pak "AssangeDAO" Ethereum Depicts a counter of the number of days Julian Assange has spent in prison. The most expensive NFT sold on-chain.[11]
$34.1 $28.985 HUMAN ONE 2021 November 9, 2021 Beeple[8] Ryan Zurrer Ethereum A kinetic video sculpture with a corresponding dynamic NFT. Sold at Christie's[12]
$26.6 $23.7 CryptoPunk #5822 2017 February 12, 2022 Unknown "deepak" Ethereum Released by Larva Labs. First bought for $1,641.[13]
$13.8 $11.75 CryptoPunk #7523 2017 June 10, 2021 "Sillytuna" Unknown Ethereum Released by Larva Labs. Sold by Sotheby's.[14]
$9 $7.67 CryptoPunk #3100 2017 March 11, 2021 Unknown Unknown Ethereum Released by Larva Labs. [10]
$8.9 $7.6 CryptoPunk #7804 2017 March 10, 2021 Unknown Unknown Ethereum Released by Larva Labs. [10]
$7.8 $6.60 Beeple's CROSSROAD 2021 February 25, 2021 Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile "Delphina Leucas" (pseudonym)[15] Ethereum Resold from the October 2020 price of $66,666.60.[15]
$7.1 $6.0 OCEAN FRONT 2021 March 22, 2021 Beeple Justin Sun Ethereum Auctioned on Niftygateway.[16]
$6.6 $5.59 CryptoPunk #5217 2017 July 30, 2021 "Snowfro" Unknown Ethereum Released by Larva Labs.[17]
$7 $6.215 Dmitri Cherniak's Ringers #879 2021 June 15, 2023 Sotheby's "punk6529" Ethereum 2nd highest sale of generative art at the time. Work is nicknamed "The Goose" due to its emergent design resembling the animal. [18]
$6.4 $5.40 Stay Free 2021 April 16, 2021 Edward Snowden "PleasrDAO" Ethereum First NFT by Snowden on behalf of the Freedom of Press Foundation.[19]
$6.2 $5.23 Save Thousands of Lives 2021 May 8, 2021 Noora Health Paul Graham Ethereum Sold for 1,337 ETH in charity auction.[20]
$5.2 $4.40 Doge (meme) 2021 June 12, 2021 Atsuko Sato "PleasrDAO" Ethereum Highest selling meme NFT.[21] 1,696.69 ETH.[22]
$5.2 $4.37 CryptoPunk #2338 2017 August 6, 2021 Unknown Unknown Ethereum Released by Larva Labs. One of 88 Zombie Cryptopunks.[23]
$4.9 $4.14 REPLICATOR 2021 April 23, 2021 Mad Dog Jones Unknown Ethereum First NFT auction by Phillips.[24]
$4.5 $3.765 EtherRock #55 2021 October 25, 2021 Unknown Unknown Ethereum Via fractional.art.[25]
$3.6 $3.6 PEPENOPOULOS, 2016 2016 October 26, 2021 Unknown Unknown Bitcoin Rare Pepe sold by Sotheby's in first auction on its Metaverse platform for NFT collectors.[26]
$3.4 $3.4 BAYC #8817 2021 October 26, 2021 Unknown Unknown Ethereum Bored Ape Yacht Club collection launched in 2021 with 10,000 works. [27]
$3.9 $3.3 Fidenza #313 2021 August 23, 2021 Unknown Unknown Ethereum Minted on Art Blocks. A generative art NFT by Tyler Hobbs.[28]
$2.9 $2.9 First tweet by Twitter CEO 2006 March 22, 2021 Jack Dorsey Sina Estavi Ethereum Sold for 1,630.5 ETH. Dorsey donated the proceeds to GiveDirectly.[29]
$2.7 $2.6 BAYC #8585 2021 October 19, 2021 Unknown Unknown Ethereum Sold for 696.969.[30]
$2.7 $2.7 Dmitri Cherniak's Self Portrait #1, 2020 2020 October 26, 2021 Unknown Unknown Ethereum "This generative self-portrait is the most important work in Cherniak's career." Sold on Sotheby's Metaverse platform.[31]
$2.8 $2.382 Machine Hallucinations – Space : Metaverse 2021 October 4, 2021 Refik Anadol Unknown Ethereum 8 works sold for a combined total of HK$39.39m (US$5.06m) at Sotheby's in Hong Kong.[32]
$2.4 $2.043 Dreaming at Dusk 2021 March 14, 2021 Torproject "PleasrDAO" Ethereum Sold for 500 ETH on Foundation.[33]
$2.4 $2.035 MetaRift 2021 March 15, 2021 Pak Danny Maegaard, aka "seedphrase" Ethereum Sold for 489 ETH on MakersPlace.[34]
$2.4 $2.0 SMB #1355 2021 October 1, 2021 Unknown Unknown Solana Highest sale on Solana. 13,027 SOL.[35]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The Wikipedia template uses a yearly average inflation. Using monthly averages gives slightly different numbers, most significantly for paintings sold early or late in a year with significant inflation.

References

  1. ^ Matney, Lucas (April 8, 2021). "The Cult of CryptoPunks". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-11-02.
  2. ^ Duffy, Ryan (May 18, 2021). "The NFT Market Tripled Last Year, and It's Gaining Even More Momentum in 2021". NFTRadius. Retrieved 2021-11-02.
  3. ^ Howcroft, Elizabeth (2021-03-17). "Explainer: NFTs are hot. So what are they?". Reuters. Retrieved 2021-11-02.
  4. ^ Abbruzzese, Jason (June 16, 2017). "This ethereum-based project could change how we think about digital art". Mashable.
  5. ^ "Pipe-Smoking Alien CryptoPunk NFT Sells For $7.5 Million". Forbes. Archived from the original on 2021-03-22. Retrieved 2021-03-14.
  6. ^ "Ethereum NFT Marketplace Monthly Volume". TheBlock. August 29, 2024.
  7. ^ McGimpsey, Patrick (January 31, 2024). "The Rise And Fall Of NFTs: What Went Wrong?". Forbes.
  8. ^ a b "Crypto Art - Fame and Fortune, with Mike "Beeple" Winkelmann". School of Motion.
  9. ^ Chandrashekhar, Anandi. "Metakovan, mystery buyer of Beeple's $69.3 million NFT art, reveals identity". The Economic Times.
  10. ^ a b c "The most expensive NFT sales so far". one37pm.com. 22 March 2021. Archived from the original on 9 March 2021. Retrieved 14 March 2021.
  11. ^ Mattei, Shanti Escalante-De (2022-02-09). "NFT auction raises $52m for WikiLeaks founder". theguardian.com.
  12. ^ Porterfield, Carlie. "NFT Star Beeple's First Real-Life Piece Fetches $28.9 Million". Forbes.
  13. ^ "CryptoPunks: Details for Punk #5822". cryptopunks.app.
  14. ^ "CryptoPunk 7523". Sotheby's.
  15. ^ a b Howcroft, Elizabeth; Carvalho, Ritvik (1 March 2021). "How a 10-second video clip sold for $6.6 million". Reuters. Archived from the original on 15 April 2021. Retrieved 1 May 2021.
  16. ^ Allison, Ian. "Tron's Justin Sun Wins $6M Beeple in 'Green' NFT Auction" – via Nasdaq.
  17. ^ "CryptoPunks: Details for Punk #5217". www.larvalabs.com.
  18. ^ "Sotheby's". June 2023.
  19. ^ Lopatto, Elizabeth (Apr 16, 2021). "Edward Snowden NFT sells for more than $5.4 million". The Verge.
  20. ^ "An NFT That Saves Lives". www.paulgraham.com.
  21. ^ Moynihan, Lydia (Jun 11, 2021). "'Doge' NFT sells for $4 million".
  22. ^ "Doge | ZORA". zora.co.
  23. ^ CryptoPunks Bot [@cryptopunksbot] (2021-08-06). "Punk 2338 bought for 1,500 ETH ($4,379,924.93 USD) by 0x7cd3fc from 0xfab9b8. https://t.co/uWIpBAC8ew #cryptopunks #ethereum https://t.co/bpLcaYt2Av" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2021-09-24. Retrieved 2021-09-28 – via Twitter.
  24. ^ "Phillips Hops on NFT Gravy Train with $4.1 Million 'Mad Dog Jones' Sale". Bloomberg.com. 23 April 2021.
  25. ^ "Etherrock #55". Fractional.art.
  26. ^ Dickens, Sean (October 27, 2021). "Debut Sotheby's 'Metaverse' auction sees record-breaking NFT sales". Yahoo! Finance. Retrieved October 29, 2021.
  27. ^ Dickens, Sean (October 27, 2021). "Debut Sotheby's 'Metaverse' auction sees record-breaking NFT sales". finance.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2021-10-31.
  28. ^ "Fidenza #313 - Fidenza by Tyler Hobbs". OpenSea.
  29. ^ Lyons, Kim (2021-03-22). "Jack Dorsey's first tweet sold as an NFT for an oddly specific $2,915,835.47". The Verge. Retrieved 2021-03-28.
  30. ^ Gill, Prabhjote (Oct 20, 2021). "Bored Ape NFT sells for $2.7 million, making it the most expensive in Yacht Club collection". Business Insider. Retrieved 2021-10-31.
  31. ^ "Sotheby's Metaverse". metaverse.sothebys.com. Retrieved 2021-10-31.
  32. ^ "Machine Hallucinations – Space : Metaverse — Machine Hallucinations — Space : Metaverse — 2021". Sotheby's. 25 October 2011. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
  33. ^ "Dreaming at Dusk | Foundation". foundation.app.
  34. ^ "MetaRift | Foundation". makersplace.com.
  35. ^ "Explorer | Solana".