The Merge sold for $91.8 million
Source: niftygateway.com At the top of the list of the most expensive NFTs ever sold is Pack's Merger. The confluence is a virtual artwork that sold for $91.8 million, a record for a piece of art publicly sold by a living artist. This piece of art was sold at Nifty Gateway to 28,893 collectors, bringing in 312,686 MUs. The price started at $575 per unit and then increased to $25 every six hours.
Merge NFT consists of three large white masses located on a black background, and the more mass investors buy, the larger their mass becomes. It has a built-in scarcity mechanism that ensures that supply decreases over time. For each Merge token transferred, it is merged with the receiving wallet token, resulting in a larger mass value and one token.
There is also a built-in leaderboard for NFT holders that allows them to keep track of the mass received by other collectors. Those who are in the top 100 and top 5 leaders are rewarded in various style classes. The largest class is the Alpha class, which is given to the best collector. This dynamic nature of this NFT sets it apart from other collections and is one of the reasons why it sells for such a high price.
The First 5000 Days, sold for $69.3 million
Source: onlineonly.christies.com screenshot The first 5,000 days is another most expensive NFT ever sold. This NFT, commonly known as "Beeple", is a collage of 5,000 individual NFTs that Beeple created each day. It was designed by Michael Winkelmann, a digital artist, and sold at Christie's with a first bid of around $100 from traditional buyers. Immediately after that, larger offers began to come from cryptocurrency investors.
On February 21, 2021, a Singaporean programmer named Vignesh Sundaresan, commonly known online as "MetaKovan" and the CEO and founder of Metapurse applied and Beeple accepted a $69 million offer. This is the record for the most expensive NFT ever sold to a private investor.
Clock, sold for $52.7 million
Source: censored.art Clock is another most expensive NFT ever sold. It is a non-fungible public cause token created jointly by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and Pack. The NFT is a digital record of Assange's days behind bars at Belmarsh Prison in London, where he was held pending extradition to the US on a series of surveillance charges. This non-fungible token was created to raise funds for Assange's defense and was auctioned in February 2022 for the equivalent of $52.7 million to AssangeDAO, which has over 10,000 Assange supporters who funded the sale.
The Clock NFT is part of a collection of NFTs called "Censored" which is quite large with over 29,000 tokenized messages from the project's buyers. Funds raised from this series of NFTs were sent to pro-freedom organizations chosen by Assange and Pak, including the Wow Holland Foundation, which also supported Assange's defense.
HUMAN ONE, sold for $28.9 million
Source: Christie's Auction House. HUMAN ONE is another NFT art from Beeple that was auctioned off at auction house Christie's for $28.9 million in November 2021. an astronaut walking through various changing landscapes at different times of the day. This hybrid artwork showcased Beeple's artistic talent beyond the digital realm.
In addition, HUMAN ONE has a smart contract that is specifically coded into it, allowing Beeple to maintain remote control over what should be displayed. Unlike other NFT creations, HUMAN ONE is an ever-working digital work of art that is worth paying a high price for.
CryptoPunk #5822, sold for $23.7 million
Source: opensea.io CryptoPunks is another amazing NFT series with the most popular tokens hitting sales records time after time. This project was launched in 2017 by Larva Labs, inspired by the cyberpunk movement, the London punk scene and electronic music artists such as Daft Punk. Ranked in the top 5, CryptoPunk #5822 sold for around $23.7 million in February 2022 as one of the rarest alien titles with only 9 out of 10,000 punks created exist.
In addition to being part of the rarest edition, he is also one of 333 others with a bandana. Deepak Tapliyal, CEO of Chain, bought this NFT. Given its rarity, it is expected to remain one of the most expensive NFTs ever sold.