A few years ago, the world of NFTs experienced an incredible boom that few could have imagined. And although the market has calmed down since then, there’s something fascinating about recalling which NFTs were the most expensive ever sold. Because honestly, some of those numbers still remain absolutely wild.

Let's start with the one that still dominates the list: Pak’s The Merge. This isn’t a typical NFT, and that’s precisely why it reached $91.8 million in December 2021. The crazy part is that it wasn’t sold to a single person. Nearly 29,000 collectors bought different amounts, with each unit costing $575. Pak devised a system where the more units you accumulated, the greater your stake in the entire piece. So technically, The Merge is the most expensive NFT in history, although some debate whether it should be considered a single piece or a collection.

Now, if we talk about a unique NFT sold to an individual collector, then Beeple takes the title with Everydays: The First 5000 Days. Vignesh Sundaresan, known as MetaKovan, paid $69 million for this massive collage at Christie’s in March 2021. The incredible part is that Beeple spent 5,000 consecutive days creating a digital art piece every day, starting in 2007. That’s dedication on another level.

Then we have Clock, another creation by Pak, but this time in collaboration with Julian Assange. A clock that literally counts the days of his imprisonment, updating automatically. AssangeDAO, a group of supporters, bought it for $52.7 million in February 2022. It’s an NFT that goes beyond art; it’s coded political activism.

Beeple is also on the list with Human One, a kinetic 16K sculpture that constantly evolves because the artist can update it remotely. Christie’s sold it for $29 million. It’s fascinating to think of an NFT that’s never truly ‘final,’ that’s always changing.

CryptoPunks, being one of the earliest NFT projects, have generated some of the most expensive NFTs on the market. The CryptoPunk #5822, un Alien Punk azul, se vendió por 23 millones de dólares. Solo existen nueve de estos Alien Punks, lo que explica el precio. Luego está el #7523, another alien but with a medical mask, sold for $11.75 million at Sotheby’s. These punks are like the Rolexes of the crypto world.

TPunk #3442 is interesting because it was bought by Justin Sun, CEO of Tron, for $10.5 million in 2021. It was nicknamed ‘The Joker’ because it resembles the Batman villain. That completely skyrocketed the value of the entire TPunk series.

Other CryptoPunks worth mentioning: #4156 (un simio raro, vendido por 10,26 millones), el #5577 (another ape, $7.7 million), #3100 (Alien Punk, 7,67 millones), el #7804 (Alien Punk with a pipe, $7.57 million), and #8857 (a Zombie Punk, $6.63 million). Honestly, CryptoPunks has completely dominated the high-value collectible market.

Dmitri Cherniak, a Canadian artist, created Ringers, a generative art series on Art Blocks. Ringers #109 sold for $6.93 million, becoming the most expensive NFT on that platform. Each piece in the series is made up of strings and nails generated algorithmically.

XCOPY, an anonymous artist known for his dystopian themes, sold Right-click and Save As Guy for $7 million to Cozomo de’ Medici. The title is ironic because many people believe NFTs can be downloaded with a right-click, when in fact that’s exactly the point XCOPY was satirizing.

Finally, Beeple’s Crossroad, a 10-second short created in response to the 2020 presidential elections, sold for $6.6 million in February 2021. At that time, it was revolutionary because NFTs weren’t as well known yet.

What I find interesting looking back is that the artists who truly won were those who understood that NFTs were more than just images. Pak experimented with new sales models, Beeple fused the physical with the digital, XCOPY played with the irony of technology. These were the most expensive NFTs not just because of speculation, but because they offered something conceptually different.

Now, if you ask about the current state of the NFT market in 2026, it’s quite different. But these milestones remain important because they marked a moment when the digital art world took itself seriously. Some of these projects, especially CryptoPunks, still remain valuable collectibles, although at more moderate prices than those historic peaks.