NFTs have recently taken the world by storm and coincidentally caused a considerable storm in the world of technology and finance, where auction houses have seen buyers pay over $69 million for a singular NFT.
If you’re looking to buy NFTs for your collection, or maybe you’re looking to buy a few now before prices start to surge so you can make a profit, then this figure above may have caused your jaw to drop.
There’s no need to worry as not all NFT prices are as lucrative as this and you’ll be able to get some good deals on marketplaces online whether that be artwork or collectible digital cards.
This article will be giving you ins and outs of how much NFTs cost and if they’re truly worth those prices.
How much do NFTs cost?
NFTs are bought with real money from a credit card or by transferring Etherum from your cryptocurrency exchange.
The cost of NFTs will vary depending on how sought after they are and also how rare they are. In fact, many of the most expensive NFTs that have sold so far are things that wouldn't be the things that people are most interested in buying.
Below is a list of 5 of the most expensive NFTs sold so far:
- Beeple’s ‘Everydays: the First 5000 Days’ – $69.3 million
- CryptoPunk #3100 – $7.58 Million
- CryptoPunk #7804 – $7.57 Million
- Beeple’s ‘Crossroads’ – $6.6 Million
- Twitter CEO & Founder ‘The first Tweet’ – $2.9 Million
The sensational internet meme NyanCat that was created back in 2011 was recently sold as an NFT for $690,000 despite being one of the most iconic memes of the decade and viewed by millions across the globe.
The value of an NFT will probably never stay the same, most people collect NFTs and hope that the value of it goes up during the period of them owning it so they can then sell it on for a profit in the future.
As there are no set values on NFTs, the seller can sell it for whatever price they feel fit or would suit the current market. Take YouTube mogul Logan Paul, who started selling NFT videos for up to $20,000, despite the fact that these clips can be easily found on his YouTubes free of charge.
This isn’t even a rare NFT as they’re readily available to anyone on his YouTube channel, but who’s to say they’re not worth $20,000 when you look at the surrounding NFT market?
Many would describe the NFT marketplace as a playground for the mega-rich as if you’re after the rarest, or the coolest pieces, you’ll have to have a generous amount in cryptocurrency or regular money to be the highest bidder
According to rankings, the average price of an NFT sold on CryptoPunks is 14.36 ether, which is just under $29,000 whereas the average price of an NFT sold on Rarible is 0.00004 ether which converts to less than $1. So prices are very far and in between depending on what you’re buying and what NFT marketplace you’re buying from.
So where can I buy NFTs?
There are so many NFT marketplaces around nowadays, some of which focus on certain categories whereas others sell and promote a variety of NFT sales. Below we’ve listed some of the most popular NFT marketplaces at the moment.
OpenSea
OpenSea has a large user base of gamers and cryptocurrency enthusiasts and markets itself as the eBay of the NFT world. It is the longest-standing NFT marketplace and has been around since 2017.
Rarible
Raible’s NFT marketplace tends to focus more primarily on art but does have other categories such as video gaming items, collectibles, and also the sale of domain names.
Nifty Gateway
Nifty is a popular marketplace that is owned by cryptocurrency exchange Gemini and is used by artists like Grimes and Steve Aoki to release artwork.
Video Games
There is not just one marketplace where you can buy NFTS, as time progressively goes on and the hype of NFTs continues to grow, NFTs are even made available to buy as in-game purchases in video games.
Players can buy and sell unique items within the game such as one-of-a-kind designs for guns, avatars, or even rare weaponry all of which are near impossible to come by within the game, making their value exceptionally high.
Having a rare weapon or piece of equipment in a video game is a massive flex in the gaming world. This is why these assets can be sold for high amounts as hardcore gamers want to acquire them and people outside the gaming realm want to get their hands on some rare gaming NFTs because they know there’s such a demand.
To give you some perspective, on a game called Crypto Kitties (sort of like NeoPets) someone paid 600 Ethereum for a kitty called Dragon, which equates to $1.3 million.
Are NFTs worth their value?
It completely depends on what you decide to buy, something may only be worth so much due to the current hype around NFTs and their value may decrease quickly, which is why people are trying to jump on the NFTs bandwagon right now so they can buy cheap, sell on for a profit and repeat whilst the hype is still high.
We must admit paying millions to have ownership of the first tweet on Twitter (by Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey) does not quite compare to a rare piece of physical art by Andy Warhol to hang up in your home, but that’s just our opinion.
Value has different meanings to everyone, whilst some people may say memories and friendship hold great value where others will argue that money and wealth holds the greatest value. Many people will look at the NFT marketplace and roll their eyes at the people paying extortionate prices for small digital files that you can readily view online in the digital space.
When you compare a rare piece of physical art with a digital file NFT, then it becomes difficult to justify the pricing of NFTs. A rare piece of art in your home where only you and your family can see it would presumably hold more value than buying an NFT of a digital file of something that can be viewed by the entire world by searching online?
It’s completely subjective, try telling Elon Musk or his wife Grimes that digital art NFTs are worth nothing after they’ve made millions through selling digital art through NFTS and even a techno song NFT that’s even about NFTs.
Rare NFTs
On the contrary, there are some rare NFTs out there created by all kinds of artists and musicians especially to be sold on the NFT marketplace such as an unreleased song or video, of which there is only one copy of them.
So the owner would be the one who has the original copy. However, nothing is stopping the buyer from sharing it online for the rest of the world to see as they will obtain a limited license to use, copy and display the file as they wish.
This is a big thing for artists, musicians, and creators as they can now prove they own a piece of digital to work and properly monetize so they receive the full percentage of the sale.
Many musicians don’t make as much as the public think they do sometimes, with people able to illegally download their music from websites for free and with music streaming services like Spotify only paying a small percentage per million streams, of which the recording studio will take a cut of that anyway from the artist.
Commission
If you’re not particularly interested in keeping the NFTs you buy for personal use or pride and you’re waiting to sell them on for a higher price to make profits, then buying NFTs can be considered worth it and highly lucrative if you manage to get lucky.
This is why many people are quickly trying to jump on the bandwagon now so they can buy fewer NFTs at a lower price that will considerably increase as the surge for NFTs expands. Even NFTs that seem undesirable for most people can become in demand and be sold for high profits.
NFTs also have a feature that enables you to receive a percentage every time the NFT is sold or changes hands after you’ve sold it, meaning even if you received a profit when you sold it, if the price continues to balloon each time it’s sold, you could make a greater profit in commission than what you originally sold it for - sounds good right?
What about when technology advances?
We suppose there is a grey area when it comes to NFTs and how much their worth and that’s how will their value hold up as time passes. Modern technology is quickly advancing year by year, with no smartphone technology, AI, image qualities, and pixels improving, etc.
What will happen to your NFT if the file format of your digital file cannot be opened on a new computer system as it’s not compatible with the most modern technology in 10 years. If it can only be opened up on computers or smartphones that are around in 10 years, then does the NFT still hold value if it cannot be accessed easily?
Physical art seems to hold its value and even gains value as time goes on, especially when it’s carefully maintained to keep its quality. This is why paintings are preserved in air-controlled glass covers or boxes so the quality does not deteriorate over time and it can still hold its value. However, people have little to no control over advancing technology which can begin to make the NFTs redundant and invaluable as time moves on.
Are they worth enough to be stolen?
A good thing about NFTs is that they’re pretty hard to steal or at least get away with stealing that is. When you buy an NFT, you’ll have a digital file of the original copy which is digitally signed by the artist and proves authenticity and when you bought this NFT.
The transaction will be listed and stored in the alluring blockchain, which records when the transaction takes place so there’ll be evidence of you being the rightful owner of it. This should make it easier for the right authorities to track it down.
So if you were to get hacked and the digital file was stolen, if the hacker tried to sell it on, there would be evidence within the blockchain to say that they are not the rightful owner once the victim had reported it.
However, there have been some cases of hackers getting into people’s Nifty Gateway accounts and stealing NFTs from there or purchasing them for a discounted price.
Stealing art from a museum is a little different from hacking someone’s account and stealing their NFTs, one reason being, if you’ve got the acquired skills to be a hacker then stealing NFTs and getting away with it is much easier as you can remain inconspicuous.
However, take the buyer of Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days, Vignesh Sundaresan or MetaKovan who paid $69.3 million for the NFT artwork, whom many people would think he would now be a victim or be vulnerable to theft due to owning something so lucrative and now so desirable.
Although, anyone who has the spare money to spend on one piece of work will have the correct cybersecurity and reinforcement to protect his purchase from hackers and potential thieves.
