The Next Big Thing in Collectibles: These Are The Most Expensive NFTs Ever Sold

Creator: Larva Labs
Sale Price: $5.59 Million*
Sale Year: 2021

In June 2017, Larva Labs began a project that included 10,000 uniquely created characters, whose designs were influenced by the London punk scene – CryptoPunks. Of these 10,000 CryptoPunks, 419 were designed with knitted hats, 169 were given gold chains, and only 24 were apes. CryptoPunk #5217 is the only one in the collection to have all three of those attributes – and only those three attributes.

CryptoPunk #5217 ©Mykhailo_0606/stock.adobe.com

On July 30th, 2021, an unknown buyer paid just shy of $5.6 million to a user known only as “Snowfro” for the CryptoPunk #5217 NFT. #5217  is 1 of 4 CyptoPunks that were sold, separately, in 2021, for a combined total of more than $30 million.

Creator: Beeple
Sale Price: $28.285 Million*
Sale Year: 2021

Michael Joseph Winkelmann, or Beeple as he’s known in the art world, is a digital artist who has made more money than almost anyone else in the world selling NFTs. The first of his creations that we’ll be having a look at is HUMAN ONE.

HUMAN ONE @newyorkfolk / Pinterest.com

The 7-foot-tall human-like sculpture that’s surrounded by high-res video screens and looks as though it’s on an endless walk through a world that refuses to stop changing, was bought by Ryan Zurrer, a Swiss venture capitalist, for a smidge less than $29 million.

Creator: Pak
Sale Price: $91.8 Million*
Sale Year: 2021

In the ever-developing world of NFTs, two artists stand out more than the others. One of whom, is Beeple, while the other is an anonymous artist (or group of artists) that is known as Pak. And late last year, Pak’s The Merge became the talk of the NFT world.

The Merge @infoartbuy / Pinterest.com

During an auction that was held on the online NFT auction platform, NiftyGateway, for a few days in early December 2021, a combined 28,983 buyers came up with $91.8 million in order to purchase Pak’s The Merge, making it piece the highest-selling NFT in history, surpassing Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 days.

Creator: Art Blocks
Sale Price: $6.93 Million*
Sale Year: 2021

In the spring of 2021, one of the co-founders of NarcissusGLRY, AKIRA, made a $550 investment – the purchase of Ringers #109, an NFT that was created by the peg-looping algorithm project, Art Blocks, and can appear as anything from 3D interactive images to regular run-of-the-mill pictures.

Ringers #109 @ringers-109/nftgates.com

Not even 8 months later, AKIRA sold Ringers #109, making the NFT Art Blocks’ highest-selling piece so far. The identity of Ringer #109’s buyer was not disclosed, however, if this is just the beginning of the NFT revolution, we’ll probably find out once they sell the piece in a few years at an incredible profit.

Creator: Grimes
Sale Price: $6 Million*
Sale Year: 2021

In 2021, Canadian musician Grimes and former partner of Elon Musk entered the world of digital art sales – and they did so with a bang. At the end of February 2021, 10 pieces of Grimes’ digital artwork went up for auction on the Winkelvoss twins’ NFT platform, Nifty Gateway, and fetched somewhere in the neighborhood for $6 million combined, with thousands of copies selling out in 20 minutes.

Grimes' Crypto Art @draecomino / Twitter.com

Selling for $7,500 per copy, the short videos, Earth and Mars, were Grimes’ bestsellers, with close to 700 copies sold. With Grimes’ arsenal of talent deepening by the day it will be interesting to see what comes next.

Creator: Edward Snowden
Sale Price: $5.4 Million*
Sale Year: 2021

Edward Snowden is a name that most would recognize as belonging to the man who blew the whistle on the National Security Agency (NSA) for its mass surveillance practices, but did you know that he is also the creator of one of the highest-selling NFTs ever bought at auction?

Stay Free @nftnow / Twitter.com

Well, he is. In 2021, Snowden created an image that contained copies of all of the official court documents that stated that the NSA’s actions were in violation of the law – adding his autograph to the image was the finishing touch on Stay Free, which helped the NFT sell at auction for $5.4 million.

Creator: Jack Dorsey
Sale Price: $2.9 Million*
Sale Year: 2021

On March 21st, 2006, entrepreneur Jack Dorsey officially launched the social media networking service Twitter when he sent the first “tweet”. It simply read, “just setting up my twttr”. Almost 16 years later there are more than 300 million Twitter users worldwide, and that first-ever “tweet” sold for a small fortune.

he First Tweet @jack / Twitter.com

In 2021, The First Tweet was sold for a little less than $3 million. The proceeds that he earned from selling “the tweet that changed the world” were donated to GiveDirectly, a charity that helps impoverished families in east Africa – mainly, Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya.

Creator: Fewocious
Sale Price: $550,000*
Sale Year: 2021

The EverLasting Beautiful sold on Nifty Gateway to @jdubs (an NFT collector) for more than half of a million dollars in 2021. Big sales like this one help to legitimize NFT artists, but creating art that has a strong message is just as important – and The EverLasting Beautiful by Fewocious has just that.

The EverLasting Beautiful @artnet / Pinterest.com

Fewocious’s artwork, The EverLasting Beautiful, not only encapsulates the artist’s blend of artistic style but, more importantly, it sends the message that the mainstream media has been staying away from for far too long – “it’s okay to be who you are because everyone is beautiful in their own way”. 

Creator: WHIsBe
Sale Price: $1 Million*
Sale Year: 2021

With a price tag of, approximately, $1 million, Not Forgotten, But Gone is not like any other Gummy Bear that you’re likely to find, especially not one from a corner store – you’d be better off saving up some Ethereum and checking the NFT platform, Nifty Gateway.

Not Forgotten, But Gone @technootips / Pinterest.com

Created by WHIsBe, an artist known for creating NFTs that are variations of Gummy Bears, Not Forgotten, But Gone is another addition to the “huge” collection of bears. Similar to the others, the golden skeleton Gummy Bear from Not Forgotten, But Gone has been encased within a transparent box (this one golden) and rotates on a wheel.

Creator: Beeple
Sale Price: $6 Million*
Sale Year: 2021

Creating pieces of art that have messages people could connect to is the way in which Beeple has managed to become one of the world’s top-selling NFT artists. As part of his “Everyday” series of images, Beeple created Ocean Front, which is said to be a commentary about the dangers of climate change. 

Ocean Front @ArtStation_HQ / Pinterest.com

Being the successful NFT artist that he is, Beeple has made a habit out of donating parts of his earnings to charities. And that’s exactly what Beeple said he would do with the proceeds that he got from well-known NFT collector Justin Sun’s $6 million purchase of Ocean Front, a few weeks after the “Everydays” auction took place.

Creator: Beeple
Sale Price: $69.3 Million*
Sale Year: 2021

Don’t let the name fool you, Everydays: The First 5000 Days is not about the first 13.79 years of anything in particular. Rather, it’s a compilation of pieces of art, one a day for 5000 days in a row. This piece is by Beeple, who started the project on May 1st, 2007 – some of which are digital art and some are original Beeple drawings.

Everydays: The First 5000 Days ©mundissima /Shutterstock.com

At Christie’s auction house in early-2021, Singapore-based programmer and crypto investor Vignesh Sundaresan paid 42.329 Ether (the cryptocurrency not the anesthetic) for Everydays: The First 5000 Days – totaling just short of $70 million. This incredibly intricate work of art was the highest-selling NFT by $40 million until Pak’s The Merge overtook it at the top of the list in December ’21.

Creator: Edith Elliott
Sale Price: $5.23 Million*
Sale Year: 2021

With the purpose of making a difference for families in South Asia, Noora Health’s Edith Elliott created Save Thousands Of Lives. Prior to auctioning it off, Noora Health estimated that for every $1,235 raised one life would be able to be saved. On May 8th, 2021, Save Thousands Of Lives was sold at a charity auction to programmer Paul Graham.  

Save Thousands Of Lives ©Stan Kastleman / linkedin.com

Graham paid $5.23 million for the life-saving NFT – that equates to more than 4,200 lives saved. This particular piece served an honorable purpose. Let’s hope more projects like this come up in the future. 

Creator: Tyler Hobbs
Sale Price: $3.3 Million*
Sale Year: 2021

Another of the pieces to come out of the Art Blocks project, Fidenza #313, is similar to the Ringers series in that they are both based on algorithms that create images. Fidenza #313’s “unpredictable, organic” curves are created through the use of a “flow field algorithm”, which also allows for more flexibility in the algorithm’s core structure. 

Fidenza #313 @gracekaous / Pinterest.com

On June 11, 2021, the buyer who purchased Fidenza #313, for $1,400 saw the flexibility for what it was – the potential for unlimited variety. 2.5 months later, the rest of the NFT art world saw the potential as well, when Fidenza #313 was resold for $3.3 million.

Creator: Beeple
Sale Price: $6.6 Million*
Sale Year: 2021

At Beeple’s first NFT sale in October of 2020, CROSSROAD was sold for $66666.60. The buyer, Pablo Rodriguez, however, didn’t know what image he was going to receive for the money he had bid. And no, it wasn’t a “blind auction”. 

Crossroads @nftproject/Pinterest

Beeple had created two images, one for each of the two possible outcomes of the American presidential election. Following the election, Pablo received his NFT and, a few months later, re-sold the piece for $6.6 million – that’s 100 times more than what he had shelled out for it a few months earlier.