I just fell down a rabbit hole about the most expensive NFTs of all time and I have to share it. The numbers are just wild.

So, the most expensive NFT ever is Pak's "The Merge" – $91.8 million. But here’s the trick: it wasn’t a single NFT, but 312,686 units purchased by nearly 29,000 collectors. Each paid about $575 per unit. Pretty clever, right? The concept was so innovative that people went crazy for it.

Then comes Beeple's "Everydays: The First 5000 Days" with $69 million – sold at Christie's in 2021. The starting price was a mere $100! But Beeple had already made a name for himself, so the price skyrocketed. It’s a collage of 5,000 daily digital artworks he created over years.

Pak also created "The Clock" – together with Julian Assange. This isn’t a typical artwork but a timer counting the days of his detention, updating daily. AssangeDAO bought it for $52.7 million. Political art meets NFT technology.

Beeple’s "Human One" is also impressive – $29 million for a kinetic sculpture with 16K video that changes over time. Beeple can update the artwork from anywhere. Pretty futuristic.

Then we have CryptoPunks. CryptoPunk #5822 – a rare alien with blue skin – sold for $23 million. There are only nine alien punks in the entire series. Deepak.eth from Chain bought it. CryptoPunks were one of the first major NFT projects ever, launched in 2017, and some pieces have skyrocketed since then.

CryptoPunk #7523 is also interesting – $11.75 million. It’s the only alien punk with a medical mask. Sotheby’s auctioned it in 2021. Rarity makes these punks so valuable.

TPunk #3442 – "The Joker" – was bought by Tron CEO Justin Sun for $10.5 million. That’s the most expensive NFT on the Tron blockchain. Originally, these TPunks cost only about $123, but as Sun reinvested, prices exploded.

CryptoPunk #4156 is an ape-like punk – only 24 of these. It sold for $10.26 million in December. Crazy: it changed hands ten months earlier for just $1.25 million!

There are many more – CryptoPunk #5577 für 7,7 Millionen, #3100 for $7.67 million, #7804 for $7.57 million. The most expensive NFT series is definitely CryptoPunks.

XCOPY, this anonymous artist known for dystopian works, sold "Right-click and Save As Guy" for $7 million – a joke about people thinking NFTs can just be downloaded. Cozomo de' Medici, one of the top collectors, bought it.

Dmitri Cherniak has the "Ringers" series on Art Blocks. Ringers #109 sold for $6.93 million. Generative art where each piece is unique.

And Beeple’s "Crossroad" – $6.6 million – was a record in February 2021. It’s a 10-second film reacting to the 2020 US presidential election, with two different endings depending on the outcome.

Looking at total sales, Axie Infinity with $4.27 billion in total revenue is the most valuable NFT collection, followed by Bored Ape Yacht Club with $3.16 billion.

The interesting part: according to current data, about 95 percent of NFTs are practically worthless. But the established series? They hold their value and some have even increased. The market cap for NFTs is estimated at around $2.6 billion.

It’s wild to see how digital art has reached such value. Artists like Pak and Beeple have completely changed the game. Each of these works has its own story – some are political statements, others pure art, and some technological innovations.

The question is: will we see even more expensive NFTs? With technology advancing and more artists entering the space, I’d say yes. But these top works will probably remain iconic for a long time.