July 30th, 2011
Dan Kaminsky embeds the first ASCII image on the Bitcoin blockchain in honor of the cryptographer Len Sassaman. (ASCII BERNANKE)
March 27th, 2012
Yoni Assia introduces the concept of using cryptocurrency to represent other assets with Colored Coins. It is the predecessor of non-fungible tokens
October 24th,2013
Kevin Mccoy (@mccoyspace) introduces the idea of embedding a contractual ownership token into a blockchain transaction in order to address the issue of a lack of an official method to authenticate ownership/transfer ownership for digital artworks.
February 20th,2014
Rob Myers minted his soul in 100 tokens on the Dogecoin blockchain, presenting one of the first examples of embedding art on a blockchain. However, MYSOUL tokens are not non-fungible due to there being more than one.
2014
Counterparty was founded in 2014 by Robert Dermody, Adam Krellenstein, and Evan Wagner. It is a peer-to-peer financial platform and a distributed, open-source Internet protocol built on the Bitcoin blockchain. It is also one of the first platforms on which NFTs could be minted.
2014
Kevin McCoy and Anil Dash created Monegraph, or Monetized Graphics with the intention of creating scarcity for digital artworks. Artists can sign in and submit a digital image that they've created. Monegraph then gives them a blockchain key and value that they can store on a Namecoin wallet, which serves as a unique claim of ownership to their art.
October 21nd, 2015
Etheria is the first NFT art project, involving a digital landscape and house. It is embedded into the Etherium blockchain.
April, 2015
Harm van den Dorpel claims to be the first artist to sell an NFT to an institution for Bitcoin. His artwork is called, "Pixel Sorters".
October, 2016
The first Rare Pepes were minted on Counterparty, marking the first time that a meme was minted as an NFT.
October 16th, 2016
Rare Skrilla (@SkrillaVentura) mints the first audio NFT under the name DJ Pepe as part of the Pepe meme movement.
June, 2017
CryptoPunks is one of the first NFTs on the Ethereum Blockchain. The original creators released 10,000 cryptopunks for free to anybody that claimed one. A secondary market for these NFTs has developed, some of which sell for millions of dollars.
December 28th, 2017
OpenSea is one of the first decentralized exchange and marketplace for digital collectibles. This includes art, trading cards, and domain names.
January 13th, 2018
The Rare Digital Art Festival is the first event exclusively for NFT art, sparking discussions on its implications for art. It signifies an important milestone for NFTs, as they gain influence in the traditional art world.
July 17th, 2018
Matt Condon (@mattgcondon) and Jonathan Mann(@songadaymann) start the first NFT podcast, Digitally Rare.
April 22th, 2018
Artist JOY (@JohnOrionYoung) mints the first 3D art NFT. He is also known for being the first crypto artist to create his own crypto contract as well as making music/video accompaniments to his NFT art.
September, 2018
Maecenas.io tokenizes an Andy Warhol painting, marking the first time an artwork from the traditional art market is made into an NFT and sold.
February 15th, 2020
Somnium Space is the first VR world NFT, allowing users to view their digital assets as if they were there physically.
December 18th, 2019
Skeenee.eth (@skeenee_art) is the first to buy real art, burn it, film the act, and mint the video as an NFT.
2020
Valuables by Cent is the first to sell tweets as NFTs, forming a marketplace exclusively for Twitter tweets. Notable tweets include Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's first tweet ever, which sold for more than 2.9 million.
January 15-17th, 2021
Future Art is Australia's first crypto art event, a three day multisensory walk-through experience.
January 28th, 2021
HashMasks are the first dynamically nameable art NFTs. Several artists were involved in the project, and buyers were unaware of which Haskmask they were going to get.
March 5th, 2021
Kings of Leon released the first NFT album, "When You See Yourself", which was their eighth studio album.