NFTs took the crypto industry by storm in 2021. From record-breaking volumes, Christie’s and Sotheby’s auctions, the acquisition of a CryptoPunk by VISA and the general advancement of the metaverse and Web 3.0 – join us as we explore the 50 largest NFT sales of 2021.
It’s no surprise that the collection with the largest number of sales in the top 50 was CryptoPunks – with 14 sales totalling $75 million. CryptoPunks achieved mainstream coverage following a sale during an auction of $11.8 million at Sotheby’s.
The Punk (#2 pictured below) was included as part of Sotheby’s online auction “Natively Digital: A Curated NFT Sale”, which saw $17.1 million of sales across works by 27 digital artists.
Yuga Labs, the studio behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club ecosystem, had the second-largest number of items featuring in the top 50, with seven Bored Apes making the cut.
The individual artists who feature most often include; Dmitri Cherniak (5 items), Beeple (4 items) and XCOPY (4 items). Beeple, AKA Mike Winkelmann, holds the record for the largest NFT sale of 2021, and all-time – excluding the notorious $500m Punk ‘sale’ – selling his now-famous EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS piece for $69m at auction.
Source: https://www.cryptocompare.com/email-updates/daily/2022/jan/12/
