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11 of the most expensive pieces of crypto art ever sold, from Beeple to Steve Aoki

Annabelle Williams   

11 of the most expensive pieces of crypto art ever sold, from Beeple to Steve Aoki
  • As the NFT market booms, records are constantly being broken.
  • Here's a guide to some of the highest-value NFT transactions to date.

The market for crypto art is booming - everyone from Mark Cuban to Paris Hilton to Taco Bell has gotten in on the action.

Since NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are mostly bought and sold via cryptocurrency transactions that are tied to the blockchain, which is by nature decentralized, rounding up the highest-value individual sales can be challenging. But per Insider's reporting and data from the crypto-art auction site Nifty Gateway, here are some of the highest-value NFT transactions to date.

Are there any high-value sales you think should be included? Contact this reporter at awilliams@insider.com with any high-value single NFT transactions you'd like to see.

Nyan Cat by Chris, on Foundation - $590,000

An NFT featuring the popular piece of internet history that is the Nyan Cat meme sold for 300 ETH, or about $590,000, in February. Insider reported that a 24-hour auction took place on Foundation, a platform for crypto art.

THE COMPLETE MF COLLECTION by Beeple, on Nifty Gateway - $777,777.77

This NFT sale is unusual because it includes a physical component as well as the blockchain-based art. This collection of Beeple's art includes many of the digital artist's pieces along with a "physical artifact of the NFT featuring a signed, numbered titanium backplate." Beeple even included a hair sample.

Hairy by Steve Aoki, on Nifty Gateway - $888,888.88

Earlier this month, musician Steve Aoki collaborated with Antoni Tudisco to produce this high-value NFT with a clip of Aoki's music and a dancing blue-and-purple figure. When it sold on March 8, it was a record-breaking single sale for Nifty Gateway.

Not Forgotten, But Gone by WhIsBe, on Nifty Gateway - $1 million

This 16-second clip of a spinning gold skeleton gummy bear sold for $1 million on Nifty Gateway. Artist WhIsBe sells several different gummy bear-based NFTs on the platform as well.

Auction Winner Picks Name by SSX3LAU, on Nifty Gateway - $1.33 million

Electronic music artist 3LAU has gotten into the NFT game and made a major sale in collaboration with Slimesunday. This sale allows the winner of the auction to name the song that plays in the music video NFT.

CryptoPunk #6965, on Larva Labs - $1.54 million

This token, which features a funky fedora, became the third-highest CryptoPunk sale to date when it was last sold on February 19. Several other CryptoPunk tokens have crossed the $1 million threshold, depending on the valuation of the crypto-currency at the time of sale. Find the full list here.

First Tweet by Jack Dorsey, on Valuables - $2.5 million or more

Though the auction closes on March 21, Jack Dorsey's sale of the first-ever Tweet as an NFT is sure to break the top 10; the current bid is $2.5 million, and it's been stagnant since March 6. Dorsey announced the auction earlier this month and plans to donate the proceeds to charity.

CROSSROAD by Beeple, at Nifty Gateway - $6.66 million

On February 24, the digital art platform Nifty Gateway announced on Twitter that a work from Beeple netted $6.6 million on the secondary sale market, brokered through the Nifty Gateway buying services. The NFT features an anti-Trump message.

CryptoPunks #7804 and #3100 at Larva Labs - $7.6 million each

These tradable CryptoPunk collectibles were both sold on March 11 for a value of 4.2k Ethereum, marking the top two sales of all time for CryptoPunk tokens. The Larva Labs website describes the CryptoPunks as "unique collectible characters with proof of ownership stored on the Ethereum blockchain."

"Everydays: The First 5,000 Days" by Beeple, at Christie's - $69 million

The highest-value NFT sale to date is a piece by crypto-artist Beeple put on auction at Christie's. It was the first NFT to be sold at the historic auction house and pointed to a newfound institutional legitimacy for the burgeoning market. The art piece, titled "Everydays: The First 5000 Days," was a compilation of 5,000 pieces of Beeple's work.

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