I recently looked at the historical data of the NFT market and realized just how wild the price changes in this space can be. When it comes to the most expensive NFT, many people’s first reaction might be a celebrity’s avatar or some boring ape—but in reality, the truly sky-high NFTs all come with surprisingly interesting stories behind them.

For example, Pak’s *The Merge* sold for $91.8 million on Nifty Gateway in December 2021, instantly becoming the most expensive NFT in history. What’s special about this work is that it isn’t a single collectible; instead, it uses an innovative sales model. Buyers purchase “quality units,” and the more units they buy, the larger their share in the piece. In the end, nearly 29,000 collectors took part, purchasing over 310,000 units, averaging $575 per collector. This crowdsourced approach actually pushed the final price higher—and made people rethink the question of what the most expensive NFT really is: is it expensive because of a single artwork, or because of a collective creation?

Then there’s Beeple. This guy hit another milestone in March 2021 with *Everydays: The First 5000 Days*—sold for $69 million. It’s a collection of digital artworks he created daily starting in 2007, built up over 5,000 days. The opening bid was only $100, but it ended up being bid up to a record price. The buyer was a Singaporean programmer named MetaKovan, who paid 42,329 Ethereum to get it. This event marked the arrival of a new era for digital art.

There’s also something with even more political overtones: *The Clock*, which Pak collaborated on with Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. It sold for $52.7 million. The artwork itself is a timer that automatically updates every day, displaying the number of days Assange has been imprisoned. More than 10,000 supporters organized and bought the piece through AssangeDAO, and all proceeds were used to support Assange’s legal defense. This has gone beyond mere artistic value and turned into a tool for political expression and a social movement.

Beyond these top-tier pieces, the CryptoPunks series is also a frequent contender for “most expensive NFT.” #5822这个蓝皮肤外星人造型的Punk卖了2300万美元，#7523, an alien Punk wearing a medical mask, sold for $11.75 million. The series launched back in 2017. It was initially distributed for free to anyone with an Ethereum wallet, and it has since become one of the most iconic collectibles in the NFT market.

Beeple’s *Human One* is also pretty fascinating, selling for $29 million. It’s not just a static digital artwork, but a dynamic sculpture that stands 7 feet tall, equipped with a 16K resolution display screen, running 24 hours a day—its content changes over time. Beeple can update the work remotely, making it truly a “living artwork.”

Looking at these data, you’ll find that the price of the most expensive NFT depends on multiple factors: the artist’s fame, the work’s scarcity, the uniqueness of the creativity, and the community’s level of participation. The names Pak and Beeple show up especially often, which suggests that in the NFT world, the value really lies in the creator’s brand effect and creative capability.

Even though the whole market has had its ups and downs, those works that genuinely have stories and meaning still hold value. Whether it’s *The Clock*, which records a social movement, *Everydays*, which sticks to daily posts for 5,000 days, or *The Merge*, which uses an innovative sales model—these are not just hype, but real milestones in the development of digital art.