The year 2021 was perhaps one of the years that marked the explosion of new concepts for the online community such as NFT, GameFi, Blockchain, and later the Metaverse as well. Although it was merely the beginning of a trend, or has been exaggerated by many as a new “technological revolution,” NFT and Blockchain works and projects have already commanded prices that are hard to imagine. A prime example is the most expensive NFT in the world at present, which, at first glance, no one would think is valued at nearly 100 million USD (approximately 2.4 trillion VND).
According to reports, the current most expensive NFT is called The Merge – a digital painting created by an anonymous artist known as Pak – who is famous in the NFT community for his iconic works. It is known that this NFT was sold on December 6, 2021, for 91.8 million USD on the Nifty Gateway marketplace. Notably, The Merge is not a single NFT and just two days after its launch, it attracted over 28,983 collectors.
According to many opinions from the online community, the most apparent reason for the inflated value of The Merge is that it does not have a “real owner.” As mentioned above, this artwork has 28,983 owners and is divided into 266,445 units, with the initial value of each unit around 545 USD at the time of sale. To purchase pieces of the NFT in The Merge, users had to buy them directly at the auction. Every 6 hours that passed, an NFT unit increased by 25 USD. Therefore, to buy at the lowest price, many people had to line up early.
Based on some sources, the main purpose of Pak creating The Merge was simply to attract more new generation NFT players. The excitement is heightened by the fact that, as he announced, The Merge can merge – as its name suggests – into a single NFT. However, this can only happen when someone has enough power and finances to acquire all the individual units.
Currently, The Merge – with Pak’s unique concept – remains the most valuable NFT in history. However, according to many opinions, with the current rapid growth and development, the figure of 91.8 million USD that The Merge has set may not last too long.