NFTs have become a creative and commercial revolution. They have become a major topic of discussion among artists and entrepreneurs worldwide and have risen to an unimaginable value. As per recent estimates, the NFT market has surpassed in 2021, compared to just under $41 million in 2018! $40 billion NFTs have been sold for millions of dollars. And here is a look at the top 10 largest NFT sales that have happened in 2021. Top 10 Most Expensive NFTs on the Planet as of 2021: ‘The Merge’: Pak, $91.8M ‘Everydays - The First 5,000 Days’: Beeple, $69.3M ‘Human One’: Beeple, $28.98M ‘Cryptopunk #7523’: Larva Labs, $11.75M ‘Cryptopunk #4156’: Larva Labs, $10.35M ‘Cryptopunk #7804’: Larva Labs, $7.6M ‘Cryptopunk #3100’: Larva Labs, $7.51M ‘Right-click and Save As guy’, Xcopy, $7.09M ‘Ringers #109’: Art Blocks, $6.93M ‘Crossroad’: Beeple, $6.6M Deciphering NFTs: What are Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)? The term ‘NFT’ stands for a ‘Non-fungible token’. If an asset can be exchanged or substituted with a similar asset having the same value, it is ‘fungible’. For instance, the currency is a fungible asset. If you take ten $1 bills and exchange them for a single $10 bill, the value of your money will still be the same. But non-fungible assets are one of their kind in the Cryptosphere. They can’t be traded or substituted for something similar because nothing similar exists! For example, the original Mona Lisa painting is a unique piece of art. It cannot be exchanged for a Mona Lisa poster sold at a local gift shop. The Eiffel tower cannot be exchanged for its photograph taken by somebody, because only one of it exists. People take a unique piece of creative artwork and assign a digital token to it. This token acts as a certificate of ownership and authenticity. And it gets stored on a blockchain ledger. Whoever has that token becomes the owner of that property and its rights. It can be a traditional or digital painting, video games, sports memorabilia, songs, GIFs, tweets, a social media post, anything! Since such artworks are immensely rare and unique in their design, they cannot be duplicated. Thus, they have a very high value. Top 10 NFT Sales in 2021 Let us look at these famous NFT sales in more detail: Pak’s ‘The Merge’ Beeple held the record for selling the most expensive NFT of 2021 for most of the year. But from December 2 to December 4, 2021, the NFT artist Pak put ‘The Merge’ on sale via Nifty Gateway. The artwork was divided into numerous masses, each costing $575 and going up by __ __every six hours. $25 If a buyer already had a piece by Pak, the mass’s price would come down to $299. The piece collectively fetched $91.8M, with 312,686 pieces sold among 28,983 traders. Beeple’s ‘Everydays – The First 5,000 Days’ Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple, is one of the most prominent NFT artists today, with his own NFT marketplace as well, going by the name We.new. On 11 March 2021, sold this NFT through Christie’s online auction for $69.3M (42329.453 ETH). It was bought by Vignesh Sundaran, aka Metakovan, founder and financer of Metapurse. This particular sale was the most popular of the year and plunged NFTs into mainstream attention. Beeple’s ‘Human One’ The ‘Human One’ NFT is a life-sized 3D sculpture. It shows a human born in the Metaverse, wearing a silver-coloured space suit. The unique thing about this artwork is that it can change in form every day based on Beeple’s desires. He has promised that he will keep updating it during his lifetime. It was sold on November 9, 2021, to the Swiss entrepreneur Ryan Zurrer, for $28.98M. The sale happened through the 21st Century Evening Sale auction hosted by Christie’s.** Larva Labs’ ‘Cryptopunk #7523’ Larva Labs studio is a team of two Canadian software developers Matt Hall and John Watkinson. And on 10 June 2021, they sold this NFT for $11.75M at London’s Sotheby’s. The buyer was DraftKing’s largest shareholder, Shalom Meckenzie. It is also dubbed as the ‘Covid Alien’. It is the most expensive Cryptopunk NFT among Larva Labs’ Cryptopunk collection, containing 10,000 uniquely created characters. These punks are 24x24 pixel unique avatars in 8-bit style. And among cryptocurrency communities, people use them as status symbols due to their rare and exclusive nature. While some consider their Cryptopunk #9998 to be the most expensive NFT ever sold (for $532 Million!), its sale remains controversial. Larva Labs’ ‘Cryptopunk #4156’** ‘Cryptopunk #4156’ was sold for $10.35M (2500 ETH) to an unknown user on 9 December 2021. It is a rare Ape-styled punk. And there are only 24 of these in the entire 10,000 Cryptopunk collection.** ** Larva Labs’ ‘Cryptopunk #7804’ This NFT was sold for $7.56M (4200 ETH) on March 11, 2021, to someone called Peruggia on Twitter. It was one of the two major NFT sales that happened on the date. Larva Labs’ ‘Cryptopunk #3100’ Selling for a touch less than #7804, this Cryptopunk was sold for $7.51M. It was the second of the two major March 11 NFT sales. XCopy’s ‘Right-click and Save As Guy’ This artwork by XCopy sold for $7.09M through Superrare in November. It was bought by the rapper and crypto whale Snoop Dogg, under his NFT alias ‘Cozomo de Medici’. Art Blocks’ ‘Ringers #109’ Art Blocks is a platform that creates on-demand generative-styled art collectables. Among its collection of 99,000 NFTs, this one was sold for $6.93M to an unknown collector on Oct 2, 2021. Beeple’s ‘Crossroad’ Beeple struck again with this 3D animated 10-second short of his. This short featured the former US president Mr. Donald Trump and was first sold on Nifty Gateway. But it generated $6.6M via a secondary market sale on February 25, 2021, bought by an anonymous buyer. Conclusion With their demand rising exponentially around the globe, NFTs will revolutionize commercial transactions and ownership as we know it. Be it purchasing digital real-estate and owning unique creative assets or using NFTs in software licenses, event tickets, and club memberships, its use cases are endless. Coupled with the rapidly-growing Metaverse, NFTs might even change the face of the world.

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