Looking at the list of the most expensive NFTs ever sold in terms of their USD price at time of sale, only 15 have cost $100,000 or more.
Seven of those are CryptoKitties, which sold in 2017 and 2018.
Of the eight remaining,
1 is an Axie from Axie Infinity
2 are from F1 Delta Time
2 are from NBA Top Shop, and
3 are CryptoPunks
Also, of these eight,
7 sold in the past month, and
3 sold in the past day - a CryptoPunk and 2 NFTs from NBA Top Shot
Given this velocity, the fact 3 more CryptoPunks are under offer for similar prices and that even base NBA Top Shot NFTs have increased in value 10x over the past couple of days, I’d be very surprised if more than 20 NFTs haven’t sold for +$100,000 by the end of January.
Someone is certain to break the $1 million price point too, if only for the hell of it.
The Why of the How
What’s important to note, is that apart from the F1 Delta Time NFTs, which were auctions direct from the developer, all these sales occurred between individuals, and most of these NFTs have been traded multiple times before reaching such prices.
This is the sort of dynamic unleashed by player-led economies:: this is what happens when blockchain is added as a security layer to an open digital asset economy.
And, in the case of NBA Top Shot, in particular, when the digital assets are non-abstract and well understood (if you understand basketball at least), the speed of value creation can be staggering.
One estimate puts NBA Top Shot’s current pace of trading at around $2 billion a year.