Review of the NFT Craze in 2021 | Listing the 15 Most Innovative NFT Artists

NFTs have been around for years, but saw a surge in 2021. Decrypt has researched the top NFT artworks of the past year and selected the 15 most innovative NFT artists, presented here in no particular order.

Original article: "15 Most Innovative NFT Artists of 2021"

All Seeing Seneca

All Seeing Seneca is the chief artist of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) development team Yuga Labs. The project features 10,000 randomly generated ape PFP (Profile Picture) images.

Since its launch, Bored Apes have become one of the most popular PFP series, thanks in large part to Seneca's bright cartoon-style designs, injecting distinctive features into the Bored Ape brand. Pieces have been acquired by celebrities like Jimmy Fallon and Post Malone for millions of dollars.

Seneca later unveiled five new NFTs at the Basel Art Fair in Miami, released through Dfinity. Two of the works paid homage to the Bored Ape theme, with one featuring a girl looking attentively at a monkey in her hand.

Justin Aversano

Artist Justin Aversano is a pioneer in NFT photography, with his Twin Flames series consisting of 100 distinctive twin portraits. One piece sold for $1.1 million at a Sotheby's auction in October.

Rapper Snoop Dogg and Coinbase angel investor Gary Vaynerchuk have collected this NFT. Aversano stated:

Whether online or in real life, photography has always been a prevalent visual language for us. This is set to be the next big wave, and 2022 will be the year of photographic NFTs.

Aversano also launched Quantum.Art, an online NFT platform for photographers.

Beeple

Beeple, aka Mike Winkelmann, entered the NFT space in October 2020 after hearing about peers making money through NFTs.

In March last year, Beeple sold the record-breaking NFT piece "Everydays — The First 5000 Days" for $69.3 million at a Christie's auction. This digital artwork spanning 13 years made Beeple one of the most valuable artists globally, thrusting him and NFTs into the spotlight.

Backed by substantial assets, Beeple has been able to experiment freely. His first physical dynamic sculpture "Human One" sold for $28.9 million alongside an NFT at a Christie's auction.

Dmitri Cherniak

Dmitri Cherniak is the artist behind The Ringers, a series of 1,000 NFTs generated using Javascript. In a now-deleted tweet last year, he expressed:

I'm not a crypto artist, just a regular artist. I use blockchain because it helps me realize the aesthetic automation art vision. Additionally, it made my initial concept of becoming an artist possible. Blockchain makes my art better.

This series is highly sought after, with a floor price of 35 ETH, approximately $138,900.