We have clarified the current data: today Cryptopunks is the most expensive and most popular NFT collection in the world. It is followed by the equally famous Bored Ape Yacht Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club. Here is the respective ranking with the minimum price of a representative of each individual collection.

Ranking of the most expensive and popular NFT collections in the world

As it became known at the end of October, the owner of the listed collections called Yuga Labs takes the first place by the volume of money earned on secondary sales of these tokens. According to sources, we are talking about the equivalent of $147 million since the release of NFT. You can read more about these statistics in a separate article.

Why NFTs are so popular

Punk token #305 was not chosen randomly – its number corresponds to one of the Miami area codes. It’s also the hometown of Yuga Labs co-founders Wiley Aronove and Greg Solano. They were previously known as Gordon Goner and Gorgamel, but earlier this year their identities were declassified, which angered Yuga Labs head Nicole Muniz. The cryptocurrency community was also unhappy, because in this case the journalists revealed the real identities of the developers solely for the sake of popularising their own resource. There was no serious point in it.

The donation of one NFT token to a museum is just the first stage of a large-scale campaign called Punks Legacy Project. In an interview with Decrypt, head of brand promotion Noah Davies said that “a few more” unique tokens from the collection would be donated to other museums in the future. Here’s his relevant line.

It’s not about a certain number of “cryptopunks”, but rather about finding museums and art heritage organisations that want to enter the Web3 world for the right reasons. Quality over quantity.

In other words, the authors of the collection don't want to flood various museums with their own art and gain more popularity through an abundance of donations. Instead, they want to look for the right locations that could attract real enthusiasts and connoisseurs of new technologies at the same time.

CryptoPunk #305

As a reminder, the NFT collection CryptoPunks is considered one of the ideological founders of the current concept of the unique token series. It was launched in 2017, and its main feature was 10,000 unique “CryptoPunk” characters, each with their own pixel art-style appearance traits. The more rare features an individual punk has, the rarer he or she is considered and higher valued accordingly.

Yuga Labs acquired the rights to the collection from Larva Labs in March, and shortly thereafter appointed Davies in charge of the future of the CryptoPunks brand. He was previously an employee of Christie’s auction house. As well as their historical significance, Davies believes that CryptoPunks are true works of art in their own right.

Since launching in 2017, the volume of secondary transactions with CryptoPunks has to date totalled more than $2.4 billion. Today, one CryptoPunks will cost at least 66.5 ETH, or $81,200 at current cryptocurrency exchange rates. The most expensive copy of the collection was sold for 8,000 ETH, or $23.7 million. The event happened in February of this year.

It should be noted that NFTs will clearly become a more popular phenomenon in the coming years. Just look at Instagram's decision to create tools to launch and distribute new collections of non-interchangeable tokens, which became known earlier this month. Obviously, this could attract new entrants to the niche.

Evolution of CryptoPunks minimum token price


We believe that such a decision by Yuga Labs will benefit the non-interchangeable token industry. NFT is a full-fledged modern version of art, which on top of that leverages the strengths of blockchain. Accordingly, it may be of interest to people already associated with art or technology in isolation.


For even more interesting news, look for it in our Millionaire Crypto Chat. There we will discuss important developments related to the blockchain and decentralisation industry.