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NFT or non-fungible token is the new investment trend in the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain after decentralized finance (DeFi). This new class of unique digital assets can come in formats such as photos, images, text documents, music, videos and more. So far in 2021, they have been one of the most popular topics in all media.
In short, NFTs or Non fungible tokens are certificates of authenticity – but unlike a traditional piece of paper or a notary public document that you would expect to get after purchase, they come in the form of unique collectible crypto that cannot be tampered with because it is powered by the technology that governs cryptocurrencies, the blockchain.
According to market data provided by Nonfungible.com, the NFT market generated over $2 Billion in sales in the month of August alone, with the crypto art world accounting for another $670 million in NFT sales.
What kind of art sells on NFT?
Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum is the most widely used cryptocurrency for token transactions (creating, buying and selling NFTs). These digital assets (artwork, text documents, music, videos, poems, recipes, selfies, tweets, blog posts, and anything else you might consider “content,” “visual and multimedia media,” or “art”) can be created on the blockchain and sold to a potential buyer in exchange for Ether (ETH) cryptocurrency or other payment tokens, which can be transferred into fiat currencies such as the U.S. dollar, Euro, or British pound.
What is the most expensive NFT to be sold so far?
Everydays: The First 5000 Days: $69.3 million, this is the record for the most expensive NFT art ever sold so far. The artwork, created by the famous Beeple digital artist Mike Winkelmann, was sold at the Christie’s in March 2021- the first time this traditional auction house has sold a purely digital art. The NFT artwork represents a collage of 5,000 of the works that the artist created over 5,000 days from 2007 to 2021. It was purchased by Metakovan who initially remained anonymous. The second highest bidder on the work was Tron CEO and founder Justin Sun, who made a $60 million bid before being eliminated at the last second by Vignesh Sundaresan (Metakovan).
What NFT sells the most?
Ranking the best selling NFTs, however, is complicated by the fact that the value of Ether (ETH) is constantly fluctuating (Most NFTs are sold in ETH).
Here is the top 10 most expensive NFTs ever sold so far:
- Paris Hilton and Blake Kathryn , Iconic Crypto Queen
US $1.111211 million, Nifty Gateway
Heiress and former reality show star Paris Hilton has become one of the celebrities to join the NFT community, even supporting a foundation that offers scholarships for artists who want to enter the NFT space. She sold her own NFT art – accompanied by the slogan “(Virtual) blondes have more fun, right?”
- Kevin McCoy , Quantum
US $1.4 million, Sotheby’s
The first NFT ever minted in crypto art history, is Kevin McCoy’s digital object, Quantum was envisioned and designed at Rhizome’s Seven on Seven Conference in 2014, but it was this year that the Quantum digital object was auctioned at Sotheby’s auction house for $1.4 million.
- Jack Dorsey, the first ever tweet
US $2.9 million, Valuable, by Cent
An NFT version of the first ever tweet by Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey, which was also the first tweet on Twitter, has sold for $2.9 million. The token from the “just setting up my twttr” tweet was minted through the Valuables platform – which allows users to create, buy and sell NFTs that represent tweets.
- Mad Dog Jones , Replicator
US $4.1 million, Phillips
Michah Dowbak aka Mad Dog Jones ” has become the most expensive living Canadian artist by auctioning his first crypto artwork at Phillips. His digital artwork, Replicator , is unique in that it generates new NFTs every 28 days or a new NFT is generated every month – it works more or less like the traditional photocopier. The buyer could ultimately own up to 220 unique NFTs, each NFT with its own secondary market sale value.
- Edward Snowden, Stay Free
US $5.4 million, Foundation
Edward Snowden’s crypto artwork features the court documents ruling that the NSA’s (National Security Agency) mass surveillance practice violated the law, with his portrait done by Platon superimposed over the text. The work sold for 5.4 million, and the proceeds were donated to the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
- Tim Berners-Lee, World Wide Web Source Code
US $5.43 million, Sotheby’s
The creator of the World Wide Web (WWW), Tim Berners-Lee, surprised many when he announced that he intended to sell an NFT representing the original source code of the web at auction. After this announcement there was much criticism and controversy about the source code of the web. But the sale went ahead anyway, with the crypto-art, entitled “This Changes Everything”, being auctioned for $5.4 million at the traditional Sotheby’s auction house.
- Beeple , Ocean Front
US $6 million, Nifty Gateway
After losing the work Everydays: The First 5000 Days, the famous NFT collector, CEO and founder of Tron, Justin Sun ended up buying the work Ocean Front, a few weeks after Beeple auctioned the work Everydays: The First 5000 Days. But this is one of the drawings in the “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” series. The work, OceanFront, was created to be a warning about the dangers of climate change, and the artist has promised to donate the proceeds to the Open Earth Foundation.
- Beeple, Crossroads
US $6.6 million, Nifty Gateway
The official buyer did not know what work of art he would actually receive with the purchase of Crossroads for $66,666.66. There were two possible images, depending on the outcome of the US presidential election. After the results were announced, the piece was finalized. Later, the collector sold it for 100 times the original selling price.
- Larva Labs, CryptoPunk #7523
US $11.8 million, Sotheby’s
Punks represent one of the most expensive NFT sales to date. They are 10,000 unique digital collectibles characters randomly generated by a computer algorithm. And they are some of the first examples of NFTs released on the Ethereum blockchain in 2017.
- Beeple, Everydays: The First 5000 Days
US $69.3 million, Christie’s
Everydays: The First 5000 Days is a collage of 5,000 digital drawings and paintings by artist Beeple that he created over 5,000 days from 2007 to January 2021. This work has the highest price ever, as it was auctioned at Christie’s for over $69 million.
Who is the most famous NFT artist?
Beeple is the most famous and highest selling NFT artist to date. Mike Winkelmann, is his full name, and he became most popular when he successfully auctioned the piece “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” for 69.3 million dollars (US $69,346,250.00), making it one of his most expensive artworks ever. Beeple is certainly an artist with a lot of NFT experience.
Top selling NFT artists in 2021
This is not the complete list, there are other artists who also stood out, these however are the digital artists and NFT creators who have created and released the most NFTs, as well as had millions of followers on social media and consequently made millions of dollars from crypto art.
- Beeple (Mike Winkelmann)
Mike Winkelmann or simply Beeple is undoubtedly one of the crypto artists who has contributed the most to the crypto art space. It is reported that in all Beeple has sold over 840 works of art, totaling over $113 million. His digital compilation or image collage, Everydays: The First 5000 Days , was the highest-grossing of all time. In addition, Beeple had two digital artworks, Ocean Front and Crossroad sold for $6 million and $6.6 million, respectively.
Mike Winkelmann has done a wide range of digital artwork, including short films, Creative Commons VJ loops, daily life, and Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) work. He has also worked on concert visuals and other creations for One Direction, Justin Bieber, Eminem, Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj.
- Trevorjonesart (Trevor Jones)
Trevor Jones loves the world of art and technologies from the beginning. He explores Augmented Reality (AR), NFC tags, as well as being an expert in video production and animation.
Your success selling NFT piece is “Genesis”. The artwork was done with Jose Delbo, a comic books and graphic designer based in Argentina. “The Bitcoin Angel” is his most popular digital work, with the sales value totaling over $188,888. making it his most valuable solo piece.
- Pak
Pak is an anonymous artist. Although no one knows the real name behind this username or nickname, this digital artist has been around for 20 years in the art world. According to reports, Pak has sold over 1,600 works of art. Each piece is estimated to have an average price of $9,500. His most successful NFT drop is the work “Metarift”, for a colossal price of $900,000
- Slimesunday (Mike Parisella)
Slimesunday is a digital collage artist based in Salem, Massachusetts, USA. He shares his main portfolio on his Instagram account , where he has 529,000 followers. He pushes the boundaries of what is acceptable in mainstream media by exploring bizarre and erotic topics. You’ll find some of his work in Playboy magazine, Penthouse, Hunger, Plastik and Glamour. He has also worked for several artists including Katy Perry, J. Cole, Lana Del Rey, and J Balvin. And he is currently the sixth highest earning artist in the NFT market.
- Mad Dog Jones (Michah Dowbak)
Mad Dog Jones, is an artist from Toronto, Canada, and started selling a collection of 15 pieces at the Diesel Art Gallery in Shibuya. He loves and takes full advantage of modern technologies to create futuristic art.
His art usually begins as photographs or hand-made drawings, and he transforms them into a collage with coloring and illustration in a cyberpunk setting. Each image tells a specific story.
Mad Dog Jones has sold over 1,500 works of art, with total sales of 14 million US dollars. His most successful NFT sale was of The Boardwork for US $388,888.
- Xcopy
Xcopy is a long-time crypto enthusiast and graphic designer based in London. Many of the artworks already made available by the artist feature bright images, and some of his digital art explores death, dystopia, and apathy through distorted visual loops.
The artist has uploaded his works to various NFT marketplaces including Nifty Gateway, KnownOrigin , Rarible, Super Rare and Async Art.
So far Xcopy has sold over 1,900 works of art, totaling over 11 million US dollars in sales. The most successful sale was the work Death Dip, for US $2 million.
- 3lau (Justin Blau)
3LAU made his name in the NFT world as a musician. He sold his first crypto-art as an album, generating over $11 million in online sales in less than 24 hours. One song sold for over $3.6 million. Each of the top bidders in his auction received an NFT of “Ultraviolet” vinyl.
- Grimes
Grimes is a Canadian superstar musician and multimedia artist. She sold a collection of 10 digital artworks. Some pieces had only one edition, while others had thousands and thousands of copies.
In total, Grimes sold more than 1,000 works of art for $8 million. Her record sales was the work Death of the Old for $388,938.
Why NFTs are valuable?
NFTs are created through a standard known as ERC-721 – in the case of the Ethereum blockchain, but recently the ERC-1155 protocol was launched, which allows you to create both fungible and non-fungible tokens. This standard establishes a type of signature on the Ethereum blockchain that turns any type of digital media into a non-fungible asset. Thus a PNG, GIF or JPEG file, photos, videos, music, audio files, etc., can be marked as unique and thus have a proof of originality.
On the other hand, non-fungible tokens are interesting because their uniqueness and ownership can be traced, they can be used in a variety of sectors as we have seen throughout this article, they can also be useful in applications and platforms developed by different companies, and they can be traded easily in secondary markets. These features open up possibilities for new business models.
For example, WePlay Collectibles are for people who want to be part of Esports events and show that they like players and talents in a different way, beyond merchandising. The WePlay Collectibles are part of a platform, where you can buy items with NFT technology – both digital and physical. They are rewards and items associated with a specific tournament.
Find more information about the platform and NFTs at https://weplaycollectibles.com/
