5 Best NFT artist 2024 (The Digital World Pioneers)

Discover the top NFT artist to watch in the digital art world. From established artists to emerging talent, these NFT creators are pushing the boundaries of blockchain technology and digital art.
Written by
Ashwin Mason
Updated
December 16, 2023

A large number of artists and producers are pushing the limits of what is possible with blockchain technology in the world of NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, which is constantly expanding and changing.

These NFT producers, who range from well-known to up-and-coming artists, not only produce magnificent digital art but also innovate the ways in which it is acquired, owned, and sold. In this blog article, we will profile some of the most fascinating and significant NFT pioneers who are deserving of close attention.

This post will provide you a glance into the world of NFTs and the artists who are paving the way, whether you're an art enthusiast, a collector, or simply inquisitive about this emerging field.

Mike Winkelmann - Beeple

RIGHT NOW, if you've found your way to this page looking for information on NFTs, chances are you've also heard of the term “Beeple”. 

CGI artist Mike Winkelmann is the man behind the name “Beeple”, and ranks number one in the world in terms of NFT artist popularity. In an instant, his name was blasted across the web after he sold a record-breaking piece of NFT art for $69 million.

Who is Beeple and Why is He Important? | by ORIGYN Foundation | Medium
Source: Medium

Do you know what that NFT piece was

In all, it was one NFT collage - consisting of 5,000 days of his artwork.

Last year, he broke records by selling $582,000 worth of crypto art within just 5 minutes, contributing to a $2,238,235 profit from the sale of a wide range of crypto artwork in barely three days

Beeple taught himself graphic designing from videos - he went to school as a computer science major. 

Graphic designer Mike Winkelmann is a multi-talented designer who has produced visuals for Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Eminem, One Direction, and countless others. Beeple creates digital art in a variety of formats, including short films and virtual reality.

A 2+ million group of followers surround him on Instagram since he's been posting illustrations and animations every day for 13 years.  

What made Beeple so special?

Beeple's artwork reflects the current trend, and always has an eccentric flair to it. His artwork has been in the public eye for 13 years, but the reasons for its popularity are quite complex

A part of what makes Beeple so special is that Beeple creates digital art by pixelating strange, hysterical, unsettling, and often horrifying images. His work blends pop culture, tech, and futuristic ideas into thought-provoking pieces that comment on the changing face of society.

Recently, a frame is shown by Beeple of Donald Trump dressed in a leather mask and stripper pasties, striking the Coronavirus bug with a whip.  

In his depiction of Jeff Bezos's announcement to kick himself upstairs, Beeple depicted him as a gigantic, pitiless sea monster, emerging from the deep, surrounded by military helicopters. 

Who bought NFTs from Beeple?

  1. The most expensive piece of art created by Beeple named “Everydays: the First 5000 Days” was bought by a Singapore-based programmer Vignesh Sundaresan, an investor in cryptocurrencies as well as the founder of Metapurse NFT project, who goes by Metakovan online. 
  2. Beeple’s “Crossroad” sold for $66,666 to Pablo Fraile, a prominent collector. After a mere four months, the painting was acquired by faceless collector anonymous10.

Beeple's net worth?

A net worth of $50 million is believed to be possessed by Beeple. Mike Winkelmann has once been described as a visionary digital artist by Christie's British auction house as one of the leading NFT artists. Mike also thanks the creator of NFTs named Pak who provided the first guide on how to sell NFTs.

Beeple's net worth information is fairly private, which makes obtaining precise figures difficult.    

Does Beeple use any kind of software?

The majority of Beeple's work is performed in a program called Maxon Cinema 4D. Furthermore, he works with OTOY's OctaneRender - a raytracing program - and Adobe Photoshop; he uses these programs for small tasks and for touch-ups. 

Adobe After Effects and Adobe Illustrator were known to be used by Beeple. 

Artworks Sold By Beeple?

Beeple has sold 2,281 art pieces so far making a substantial profit.

Is there an estimate of the value of all the artwork sold by Beeple?

Yes, Beeple sold artwork valued at $37,871,180.19, so when converted into Ethereum, it comes out to (8,046,382 ETH). 

Pak

After Beeple, there is only one artist worth following closely, whether you are an expert or a newbie, and that’s Pak. 

Definitely worth paying attention to. 

Murat Pak, aka Pak, is an enigma and because people do not know exactly who he is, he is often referred to as the “Satoshi of Crypto Art”. Few details about Pak are known, besides his involvement with the popular Twitter handle “Archillect” and his involvement with the Undream Studio business.

Meet Pak: NFT artist with a mystery identity is the favourite of Elon Musk
Source

Pak's work tends to be abstract in nature, and he has a circle-like avatar on social media, which he refers to as “The Nothing”. On the other hand, Pak has become renowned for its eye-catching artwork, cutting-edge token mechanisms, and growing media presence.   

Several eyes were focused on Pak, particularly in the art world, when the auction house Sotheby's hosted a three-day event. Artworks in the auction included both one-of-a-kind pieces and open editions. 

What made Pak so special?

Known primarily for creating an algorithm called Archillect, which crawls the web to find images suitable for sharing on social networks such as Facebook and Insta. 

Archillect is the synergistic blend of “archive” and “intellect” which indicates that it utilizes an artificial intelligence algorithm to curate and share images. Posts are chosen for widespread distribution via artistic bots, essentially serving as virtual mood boards. 

Who bought NFTs from Pak?

For the two-day sale of Nifty Gateway, designer Pak presented “Merge”, which was a unique NFT project with the potential to expand over a period of time. 

There were over 28000 collectors who participated in the release, spending a lot of money -- $91,806,519 in order to buy 266,424 pieces of Pak’s NFT that have been named “Mass”. 

In fact, Pak became the world's most expensive living artist when the sale was finalized, yet many continue to struggle to grasp a clear understanding of what Merge is. 

To give you a better understanding of this, Pak’s Merge is said to have a pre-existing token supply limit, which ensures a constant decrease in token supply. Upon receiving the Merge tokens, each recipient wallet generates a single icon based on the mass value.

Pak’s worth?

Currently, Pak, a mysterious artist, has been gaining a lot of attention. Pak has even received tweets from Elon Musk, and crypto-based art aficionados are huge fans of artists’ work. 

While estimating Pak's net worth is highly challenging, due to its private nature; based on our research, we believe that the artist has made about $23 million through the sale of digital assets. 

Between April 12 to 14 of 2021, the auction at Sotheby's largely contributed to Pak's net worth. 

Does Pak use any kind of software?

Pak has never openly disclosed the type of software and design tools that they make use of. Yet, some speculation has emerged. Various 3D design programs and ray-tracing software contributed to the creation of the Pak art. 

However, keep in mind that this is just an educated guess based upon different factors, such as the appearance of Pak's artwork made by us, and not the precise tools themselves.   

Gary Vaynerchuk - VeeFriends

On Tuesday, May 11, 2021, GaryVee released his NFT collection that is called VeeFriends.

Having gone from obscurity to becoming the most influential and innovative NFT collection the market has ever seen, VeeFriends is now a huge hit

Gary Vaynerchuk is the founder of VeeFriends and the program debuted around the same time as Bored Ape Yacht Club was just starting to gain momentum. Although the NFT market is still in its infancy, GaryVee positioned his ambitious project in a unique way to lead to the most significant open-source NFT community to date.

Gary Vee's, NFT Collection, VeeFriends Is Booming
Source

As soon as you purchase a VeeFriend NFT, you become part of the VeeFriend network that gives you access to VeeCon, a first-of-its-kind collection containing 10,255 VeeFriend tokens. It will remain an art object and a collectible for all eternity. 

What made VeeFriends so special?

Due to its uniqueness and creativity, Veefriends stands out from the rest. This NFT was created by Gary, who drew 286 animals using markers onto a piece of card and filmed the process as he worked on each one. As outlined on the project's about page, Gary named each animal after a human characteristic he admires most. 

Gary stood out by focusing on what he believes will lead to success and happiness. The reason he called them friends is that friendship and business can go hand in hand, and communities can be formed based on shared interests and supported by friendship, empathy, and kindness. 

Who bought this NFT?

Gary Vaynerchuk has sold more than $90million worth of hand-drawn doodles. A recent Christie's auction in New York saw him sell five of them for $1.26 million, outbidding both Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock.  

Gary Vaynerchuk's net worth?

Gary Vaynerchuk has an estimated net worth of $160 million. VaynerMedia's co-founder and CEO, a four-time best-selling author of the New York Times. 

What kind of software was used to make VeeFriend?

Gary didn’t use any kind of software to make VeeFriend NFT cards; he merely used markers and cards for their creation.   

Trevor Jones

Trevor Jones is a designer who blends art and technology. In 2017, Trevor Jones, a Scottish artist, bought his first bitcoin. Since then, he has become fascinated with cryptocurrency.

Together with an artist friend named Alotta Money, he designed an animated piece called "EthGirl" that was influenced by Picasso's artwork. It broke the previous record on SuperRare in its first day of release, in December 2019 selling for about 72 Ethereum value ($10,000).  

Trevor Jones: An Interview With One of the World's Top NFT Artists
Source

Collaboration with Ethboy has been his most valuable sale so far, selling for $141,000. Moreover, his bids have consistently outperformed those of his competitors on NFT marketplaces such as SuperRare, MakersPlace, and Nifty Gateway. 

His Twitter following is now over 15K, and he continues to make huge waves in the world of crypto art. Earlier this year, Trevor's bitcoin Angel shot out in the run for the highest-performing open-edition NFT with a take-home of $3.2 million.

Trevor Jones began his art career with canvas but has gone on to collaborate with some of the industry's leading NFT artists, like “Jose Delbo” and has sold over 5,200 works of art at an average price of $4,000.

What made it so special?

Trevor’s work has a lot of technological elements including animation, augmented reality, and now NFTs, however, oil on canvas is his favored medium, which is what sets Trevor Jones apart from other artists. 

EthGirl stood out for the fact that it was a moving animation incorporating the Ethereum logo, the MetaMask fox, the Reddit logo, and the rocket emoji, among others. 

Who bought this NFT?

From a collector named "Moderats", EthGirl received a winning bid of 72.1 ETH. 

Trevor Jones net worth?

The exact amount of Trevor Jones's net worth is not known at this time, but based on the total artwork sold, Trevor Jones's net worth is estimated to be $24,643,365.20. 

Note that this is a rough estimation based on sold artworks. 

What kind of software does Trevor Jones use?

Trevor Jones NFT creating journey begins with oil paintings and ends with animated versions. 

FEWOCIOUS

Regardless of one's age, one can still make art, and this is true for NFT as well. Fewocious has proven this to be true.

In June 2021, Fewocious cracked the world record by crashing Christie's website because there were so many collectors eager to own the young artist's works. 

Fewocious' NFT.NYC Paint Party: A Collaborative, All-Ages Event – Billboard
Source

Young artist Fewocious is 19 years old and has sold over 3,189 pieces. His following on social media exceeds 100,000. Plus he's the first artist his age to have his art featured by a prestigious auction house

Victor Langlois, better known as Fewocious, has earned more than $18 million since he entered the NFT market in 2020 via the sale of his digital artwork “The Everlasting Beautiful” valued at $5.5 million.

What made it so special?

His work shed light on his emotional journey, which really made him stand out. A unique aspect of this NFT was its inclusion of the colors of happiness. 

Who bought this NFT?

“The Everlasting Beautiful” was bought by GoingParabolic in a deal worth $550,000 on NiftyGateway. 

Fewocious net worth?

Fewocious the talented teenager who made headlines with his NFT talent is now worth $26 million and has other stories. 

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Who are some of the NFT creators

Who creates NFT?

Some of the main groups that create NFTs include:

What makes a good NFT creator?

A good NFT creator is one who is able to create unique and valuable digital assets that appeal to buyers. Some of the characteristics that can make a good NFT creator include:

It's important to note that NFT creator's success also depends on a number of external factors, such as the current NFT market conditions and the overall interest in the specific genre of art or collectibles they create.

Written by

Ashwin Mason
I'm Ash, a Product designer with an affinity for coffee and design. I've been designing for about 8 years now and had the privilege to work on some great projects. I also love music, food, wine, and a day out.