just went down a rabbit hole on nft history and honestly some of these prices are absolutely wild. like, Pak's Merge sold for $91.8 million back in 2021? that's insane. and what's crazy is it wasn't even one person buying it - 28k+ collectors each grabbed pieces of it. that's a whole different model than i thought most expensive nft sales worked.

beeple's been everywhere in this space too. his 5000 Days piece went for $69 million at Christie's in 2021, started at just $100 in bidding. the guy literally drew one piece every single day for 5000 days straight and turned it into this massive collage. that's the kind of dedication that actually justifies the price tag imo.

what got me though is the Clock - Pak made this with Julian Assange that literally counts the days he's been imprisoned, updates every day. AssangeDAO bought it for $52.7 million to support his legal defense. so it's not just art, it's activism. that's actually powerful.

CryptoPunks keep popping up everywhere on the most expensive nft lists too. like CryptoPunk #5822 went for $23 million, #7523 for $11.75 million. these were literally free to mint back in 2017 on Ethereum. now individual ones are going for tens of millions. the rarity factor (especially the alien ones) is wild.

even Beeple's older stuff from 2021 is still on these lists - Crossroad for $6.6 million, HUMAN ONE for $29 million. dude's basically defined what high-value nfts look like.

the thing that strikes me is how much of this was concentrated in 2021-2022. now we're in 2026 and i'm not seeing nearly as much buzz about most expensive nft records being broken. makes you wonder if the market's cooled off or if collectors are just being more selective. either way, those early pieces have become like digital art history at this point.