NFTs are non-fungible tokens, digital assets with unique properties.

In other words, they cannot be exchanged for an item of the same kind – this has enabled the creation of unique digital artworks and an explosion in the scene around collecting them, translating to some eye-watering prices. 

Here, we’ll take a look at the 11 most expensive NFTs ever sold.

11 – Ringers #109 (£5.14 million)

Ringer #109 just sold for 2,100 ETH ($6.9M). This is now the highest @artblocks_io sale to date 👀 pic.twitter.com/vK20X98ZYy

— nft now (@nftnow) October 2, 2021

Using automation to craft his “hand-coded goods,” Artist Dmitri Cherniak’s Ringers collection was developed so the artist could illustrate how a string can wrap around a set of pegs in an infinite number of ways. Using a self-coded automation sequence, each output from the 1,000 unit collection of NFTs is uniquely generated, with varying degrees of rarity.

The piece above, which sold for £5.14 million in October, 2021, features 11 traits, four of which are considered extremely rare. Namely, the white body and small red circle, the balanced wrapping of the string and the shape of the loop.

10 – Right Click and Save As Guy

Right-click and Save As guyhttps://t.co/4KbjnmAPPe circa 2018

They said it at $100 they’ll still say it at $100,000 #cryptoart https://t.co/m8YBGEWCfO pic.twitter.com/8SXLQZxK6W

— XCOPY 🏴 (@XCOPYART) August 19, 2020

The second entry on the list from London-based artist Xcopy – whose work has become some of the most sought-after in the NFT space, Right Click and Save As Guy belies the artists usual overt dystopian themes (as expressed in his earlier work in this list, A Coin for the Ferryman), created instead as a joke aimed at NFTs’ detractors.

Right-click and Save As Guy was sold on the SuperRare marketplace for $7.08 million in December, 2021. It was bought by a user known as ‘Cozomo de Medici’, who many believe to be the alias of Snoop Dogg (though he denies this). 

9 & 8 – CryptoPunk #3100 and #7804

Today is the Cryptopunks 4 year anniversary! 🎉🎊🍾 Here’s a quick look back at a very eventful year: https://t.co/N9drUWthVT

— CryptoPunks (@cryptopunksnfts) June 23, 2021

Two separate CryptoPunk works find themselves among the most expensive NFTs ever sold. CryptoPunk #3100 sold in March of 2021 for $7.58 million and #7804 for $7.67 million. 

Interestingly, CryptoPunk #3100 broke a record set by CryptoPunk #7804 the previous day. An increase in the price of Ethereum at the time took this particular NFT over its counterpart.

What is CryptoPunk, you ask? Essentially, CryptoPunks are a set of 10,000 digital characters, all of which are unique – truly embodying the foundational spirit of NFTs. 

7 CryptoPunk #4156

CryptoPunk #4156 was just sold for a record $10.5M USD (2.5K ETH). It is probably the second highest CryptoPunk deal after the most expensive ‘Alien’ CryptoPunk was sold in June for $11.8M at Sotheby’s auction.https://t.co/EJexyAwE6j pic.twitter.com/ck4ZXY0KGj

— ICO Analytics #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 (@ICO_Analytics) December 9, 2021

Like CryptoPunk #3100, this punk has only 1 attribute, a blue bandana tied backward, which only 481 other Punks of the 10,000 in the overall collection share. When CryptoPunk #3100 was last sold in late 2021, it became the most expensive CryptoPunk ever sold on Larva Labs’ very own CryptoPunk marketplace, selling for £8.26 million.

6 – CryptoPunk #7523

Moments ago in our #London saleroom, an extremely rare “Alien” CryptoPunk #7523 from the collection of @sillytuna sold for $11.8M as part of our #NativelyDigital NFT auction – setting a new world auction record for a single CryptoPunk. pic.twitter.com/PDVUSttI3o

— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) June 10, 2021

Turning an initial $1,646 investment back in mid-2017 into an $11.8 Million payday at a Sotheby’s auction four years later, the “Covid Alien” has 3 attributes: earrings and two other rare features, the knitted cap and medical mask. The latter of these no doubt contributing to its astronmical value increase, given the context of when it was sold.

5 – CryptoPunk #5822

*CRYPTOPUNK #5822 NFT HAS SOLD FOR $23.7 MILLION, FOURTH LARGEST NFT SALE ON RECORD

😂😂 pic.twitter.com/QINV9wYLOr

— Investing.com (@Investingcom) February 13, 2022

The final Punk on the list. This one commanded the eye-watering price tag of 8,000,000ETH (£12.28 million at time of writing). Why, you ask? Well, it’s alien type (there’s only nine of those out of the 10,000) and it’s only feature is its blue bandana. Generally, the fewer features a CryptoPunk has, the more it is rarified.

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4 – Human One

introducing HUMAN ONE pic.twitter.com/eysmH6WkOY

— beeple (@beeple) October 28, 2021

In November of last year, Beeple had his second most successful NFT sale (and the third most successful of all time) with Human One at $28.9 million.

This was another milestone piece in the NFT space due its dynamic and hybrid physical/digital nature. The work itself presents a human sculpture perpetually walking across ever-changing landscapes, with 3D movement presented through four video screens of 16K resolution, which come together to form a 4×4-feet box, all housed in a polished aluminium metal, mahogany wood frame.

What makes it dynamic is that the artist continues to maintain remote access control over the artwork, meaning he can continue to change elements within it.

3 – Clock

And @AssangeDAO acquires Clock for 16593 ETH.

100% will go to Wau Holland Foundation that supports Julian Assange's defence. pic.twitter.com/SBqGZQ3qiR

— Pak (@muratpak) February 9, 2022

Created by Julian Assange and Pak – one of the highest-grossing artist’s alive today – Clock depicts a timer that shows that number of days that Assange has been kept in prison. In February 2022, the piece sold for $52.7 million.

Assange’s case is highly controversial,  leading to fierce debates about anonymity, freedom of information, and censorship – all issues very much at the heart of the decentralised space. As such, it comes as no surprise that Pak, an artist who’s known for masking their identity and using voice distorting mechanisms in interviews, would partner with Assange.

2 – Everydays: The First 5000 Days

Every single day for the last 13 years, the digital artist Beeple has created a unique artwork from start to finish as part of his monumental ongoing series, EVERYDAYS.
.
This month, we will of…#beeple #digitalart #digitalartist #artist #art #thefirst5000days #nft @beeple_crap pic.twitter.com/4VjcZp4rWq

— Christie’s (@ChristiesInc) February 16, 2021

This NFT, created by digital artist Mike ‘Beeple’ Winkelmann, sold at Christie’s auction house for a whopping $69.3 million in February of 2021.

The piece is essentially a collage of 5,000 Beeple artworks. Notably, this NFT auction marked the first time the centuries-old auction house sold a digital-only piece of art.

1 – The Merge

⚪m(4143) #149 owned by cl7 keeps growing.

19 merges in the last 30 minutes, including a 🟡m(517) and a 🟡m(385). pic.twitter.com/PASz1DlRa9

— Pak (@muratpak) February 15, 2022

Created by digital artist Pak and sold for an incredible $91.8 on Nifty Gateway, The Merge is undoubtedly unique in conception. Instead of being a single piece of work, The Merge could be considered as fragmented art. In this case, it means that instead of being owned by one person, the NFT was sold in pieces of ‘mass’ that formed together to form the completed work.

Thus, the collectors together bought a total of 266,445 pieces of #mass’ by the time the sale ended on 4 December, 2021.

Each ‘mass’ cost $575 when the sale began with the price increasing by $25 dollars every six hours before the end of the sale.

The price was a record for an artwork sold publicly by a living artist, according to Nifty Gateway, though this could be contested. As a result of it being fragmented art, The Merge could be considered many pieces of individual art. 

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