NFT Crypto Art – Best Upcoming NFT Art Projects in 2022

Ever wanted to feel like an art collector or simply wanted to get in on the NFT rush? If that’s the case, this article can help you get insight into where, how, and from whom to buy NFTs (non-fungible tokens). For those interested in art but new to NFTs it can be confusing at first.

NFTs are artworks created on the blockchain, with unique encryption codes that can be verified for authenticity and ownership. An NFT can be anything from a digital art piece to a song or a whole album, depending on the context.

In this guide, we list some upcoming NFT artists and their NFT art projects. Each have their own style of creating the best NFT art. We’ll cover the different art styles and techniques used in their creation, and where to look out for art-themed NFT drops.

Top NFT Artists in December 2024

The top NFT art projects we will be covering in this article are by these artists:

Best NFT Artists in Review

Let’s take a closer look at NFT crypto art and all the other artistic expressions possible with NFTs.

Rich Lord

Rich Lord has sold a total of 1,422 artworks, with an average sale price of $20,401.74. His work is a mix of geometric abstraction with unnerving reality. His animated NFTs are becoming increasingly popular, earning him the right to use a watermark for Geometry Runners.

The piece is comprised of a semicircle that is continuously rolling ahead in brilliant hues. This sculpture differs from his other works in that it is more abstract.

It was Rich Lord who came up with the idea of animated NFTs, which show legs walking in circles, fingers changing into different shapes, and even a monster with eyeballs that proliferate all over its body.

The recent Geometric Runners Collection by Rich Lord

The Rich_Lord already has upto 1500 sales under his belt with a wide range of artwork to offer each with its unique expression of surrealism. He was also part of the team which built the Portal 2 game which in itself is a physics marvel for the gaming world.

Yubo

If you’re familiar with NFTs and NFT art styles, you’ll know many have a retro, pixellated style which some see as a nostalgic throwback to the 80s and 90s, and retro video games. The CryptoPunks were one of the first ‘OG’ collections to famously adopt that retro art look.

The Randos are an upcoming NFT project launched by Yubo, which is also a popular social media app where buyers of these artworks can use them as an avatar. Meet over 21,000 members in the Yubo Randos Discord.

Via the Randos.yubo.live homepage

Developed in 2015 in France, the Yubo app itself has now reached over 50 million registered users globally, many of which will be in the younger generation and interested in crypto, NFTs, and NFT crypto art of all formats.

Each character in the Randos collection is its own NFT with a random style and attributes. There will be a total of 10,000 Randos NFTs, set to be priced at 0.1 ETH.

Yubo have scheduled their Randos NFT drop for Spring of 2022, and you can join the whitelist now to mint one.

Hackato

Hackatao are two famous NFT artists – a duo that came together in Milan in 2007 and has been at the forefront of crypto art since 2018. They’re well-known in the community for their distinctive contemporary creation style, which incorporates elements of street art, graphic design, tattoo art, and other mediums.

Their name is a combination of the terms “hacker” and “tao,” which signify “all living” and “someone who transcends imposed constraints with innovation and resourcefulness.” The word ‘Hack’ refers to the delight of delving deep and discovering what’s buried within, while ‘Tao’ refers to the dynamic creative balance of Yin and Yang.

The contrast between the two artists is one of the things that makes Hackatao worth watching. Their contrasts are reflected in their work, which blends to produce something absolutely amazing.

Hackatao’s most expensive art piece: Imago, 2k2 a.C

Hackatao’s artworks frequently include references to art history, symbolism, and psychology, as well as major societal issues, the environment, humanity, and cryptocurrency.

A contrast between black and white and brilliant color is also prevalent, making their meticulous pieces shine. Imago, 2k2 a.C, their most expensive NFT was sold for $932,285.00 and it depicted a naked woman with words and art printed all over her body.

Some of Hackatao’s other works, both animated and still-image, are based on this concept. Their total artwork value is a whopping $27,367,879 making them one of the top NFTs artists in the business.

Tyler Hobbs

Tyler Hobbs is an Austin-based visual artist who typically works with algorithms, plotters, and paint. His work focuses on computational aesthetics, specifically how they are formed by the biases of modern computer hardware and software, as well as how they relate to and interact with the natural world.

Tyler creates and codes specialised algorithms for visual imagery generation. These frequently find a balance between the cold, hard structure that computers excel at and the messy, organic chaos that we see in nature making him one of the best NFT artists on this list.

Small Scale: Fidenza #545

He became a curated artist after discovering Art Blocks, an art platform that makes NFTs based on generative art. Fidenza, his signature project, debuted in June on Art Blocks, a non-fungible token (NFT) platform. 999 of the pieces were minted at a price of 0.17 ether apiece (about $400 at the time), generated at random using an algorithm of Hobbs’ design and rich with colourful curves and blocks.

They can now be purchased for up to 1,000 ether (approximately $3.5 million) on the OpenSea secondary market.  Hobbs, who was influenced by abstract expressionist painter Francis Klein, prefers to employ place names in his art since they have no baggage or clear meaning.

A total of 999 pieces were “dropped,” with the first selling out in less than 25 minutes for 0.17 ETH (about $400). Hobbs and Art Blocks split the approximately $400,000 in sales 90/10.

His works come with a pre-programmed 10% commission on the secondary market, mostly Opensea, which is automatically shared 5.0 percent /2.5 percent /2.5 percent between himself, Art Blocks, and Opensea respectively . Hobbs has already earned over $4 million in commissions from an estimated 85 million in secondary sales.

Trevor Jones

Trevor Jones is one of the up and coming NFT artists to watch out for from Scotland. A skilled crypto artist, he primarily creates paintings and animates them. Trevor has the highest average sale on SuperRare ($5,326), with his first NFT selling for over $10,000. Trevor is driven by his desire to create.

He set out to constantly innovate after graduating from Edinburgh University and Edinburgh College of Art in 2008. He was and still is a fantastic fit for the NFT medium. He has pushed the medium to new heights and has been a pivotal figure in our fight for general acceptance.

Jones has become one of the most important artists minting NFTs since his entry into “crypto art” in 2018 – when he employed augmented reality to transform paintings at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery into crypto bigwigs. His name is known throughout the industry. He’s worked with Pak, whose art was just auctioned at Sotheby’s for $16.8 million.

The Bitcoin Angel by Tervor Jones

Trevor Jones’ collaboration with PAK X TREVORJONES was one of his most significant in the NFT field. It was sold for approximately 1.4 million dollars. Interestingly, no one knows PAK’s true identity because the artist chooses to keep his identity disguised.

The NFT artwork was primarily comprised of fascinating oil painting portraits of several notable artists who are well-known in the art world. Artists such as Picasso, Basquiat, O’Keeffe, and others are among them. The community adored the collection series, and it is considered one of the best works of art in the NFT community.

His sculpture Bitcoin Angel made a record for the most expensive open edition NFT artwork in February 2021, selling for £3.2 million in under seven minutes. And, while it may seem as if a new name emerges every day in the realm of NFT art, Trevor Jones is one to keep an eye on. Jones, a proponent of digital art, is optimistic about the medium’s future, believing that blockchain technologies such as NFTs would “totally transform the way art is consumed.”

He’s interested in seeing how virtual reality (VR) environments develop as venues for showcasing NFTs. The objective is that digital treasures and artwork would be shown in virtual settings similar to how they would be placed on a gallery wall or in our homes. This motive behind his art makes him one of the top NFT artists to watch out for.

Pak

Pak, an anonymous digital artist, is currently the highest-grossing NFT artist on the planet. Pak has been a part of the digital media sector for over two decades and has remained anonymous to this day. Pak’s average selling is $4,077.96 for his own NFTs, while his piece ‘the Switch’ sold for $1,444,444, which amounts to around 537.698 ETH (Ethereum).

After Sotheby’s chose to enter the “Metaverse,” Pak teamed up with them to produce ‘The Switch’ collection.

“Merge,” Pak’s most popular non-fungible token (NFT), garnered $91.8 million in sales in December 2021, placing it atop the list of the most expensive non-fungible tokens.

An artwork from Pak’s Switch Collection at Sotheby’s

Some of Pak’s works have been sold on sites such as Sotheby’s, Nifty Gateway, MakersPlace, SuperRare, and Async Arts. Pak is credited with bringing Beeple to non-fungible tokens (NFT)

Pak is also recognised for a style that takes advantage of blockchain technology, notably smart contracts, which has been regarded as appealing to cryptocurrency enthusiasts. The visuals associated with Pak’s NFTs are either geometric shapes or images that have been produced automatically.

Pak regularly embeds secret messages within non-fictional texts (NFTs) and uses social media platforms to promote and discuss these messages in an open and honest manner. Pak’s usage of non-financial tokens (NFTs) has been characterised as “changing traditional notions of value and ownership.”

MattDesl

Matt DesLauriers is a Canadian-born artist who currently resides in London, United Kingdom. His work is concerned with the fun exploration of code as a creative medium, which is frequently fueled by emergent, generative, and algorithmic processes, among other things amounting to some of the best NFT art.

An artwork from MATTDESL’s Meridian Collection (#611)

Matt DesLauriers, also known as MattDesl, has sold a total of 2,069 pieces, with an average sale price of $23,904 per piece sold.

MattDesl’s huge variety of NFTs, ranging from 3D moving images to geometrical shapes, allowing people with a wide range of creative tastes to enjoy his work due to his wide range of NFTs.

Meridian, his most expensive piece, was constructed from many small strokes of colour and was sold for $33,322.66. It was the artist’s most expensive work.

Fewocious

Fewocious, a teen artist, is at the forefront of the New Faces of Technology Renaissance. Currently 19 years old, the digital artist is known for his pop surrealism style and has taken the NFT and cryptocurrency worlds by storm.

With more than 100,000 followers on social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter, the young artist has sold a total of 3,189 NFT pieces, with each piece selling for an average of $8,329.24 making him one of the best NFT artists in the industry.

His most valuable item, a painting titled “Nice to Meet You, I’m Mr. MiSUNDERSTOOD,” features a crying character – who appears to have been stolen from a children’s television show – with bright swatches surrounding his torso.

Artwork titled “Nice to Meet You, I’m Mr. MiSUNDERSTOOD” by fewocious

In each piece, the artist has produced flowers and clouds that are reminiscent of a fourth-grade diorama made out of a shoebox and plenty of shiny wax paper.

Each work is unique, with splashes of colour as well as monochromatic pieces. The piece is completed with a canvas of 30×30 inches, oil paint, and gloss varnish. Fewocious is currently working on a clothing drop as well as “a couple of other things.”

Micah Johnson

This former Major League Baseball player turned artist debuted in the NFT space with Aku: The Moon God, a collection of sculptures and digital art that depicts a little black child in an astronaut’s headgear, as well as other works.

With 1,534 total sales, Johnson soon established himself as one of the most renowned brands in the industry.

While the average price of his artworks is $2,198.83, his piece ‘SÄ-V(Ə-)RƏN-TĒ’ sold for $668,605.00. On one side of a door, there is an astronaut standing to the left of it, and on the other side of the door, there are two young African American boys.

Micah Johnson’s ‘SÄ-V(Ə-)RƏN-TĒ’ piece

The astronaut recalls a chance encounter with a young child named Rayden, who thought he was too stupid to be an astronaut. Rayden was 7 years old at the time. Because of this, Johnson developed the piece titled ‘SÄ-V(Ə-)RƏN-TĒ’, and with every contribution made to the art, Rayden will get 100 percent of the money raised upon reaching the age of eighteen.

“For generations, the black community has been the target of a system that has been meant to limit their power, their earning potential, and their goals,” Johnson says in the description of the art piece. 

Dmitri Cherniak

Dmirti Cherniak is a Canadian NFT artist who got into crypto in 2014 by using Coinbase’s tripping widget to enable Bitcoin journalism crowdfunding. In 2019, he minted his first NFT for Jake Brukhman on OpenSea. His artwork looks like something out of a blueprint for machinery, with an average selling price of $98,224.93.

Self Portrait #1, his most valuable NFT, sold for $2,682,000.00 on SuperRare’s marketplace. Curvy lines and colourful circles fill the picture, giving it an abstract appearance.

Cherniak is the creator of The Ringers, a 1,000-piece generative art NFT collection. The Ringers collection, like Fidenza by Tyler Hobbs, is stored on Ethereum using Art Blocks. He created these instantly recognizable images of strings around sets of pegs using p5js, a javascript (computer language) library.

As an NFT creator, you have a variety of options for getting your work noticed. Instead, Dmitri Cherniak is doing something completely unexpected. Many people are perplexed by his strategy. His NFTs are being sent to completely random wallets. Simply put, he’s putting them out into the world to see what happens.

Some of the Ringers by Cherniak

The NFT developer outlined his innovative concept in a Twitter conversation. He said he would develop a new output from an algorithm every day in January, choose a random wallet address, mint the work, and deliver it to the address.

Will more and more NFT creators follow suit and opt for this one-of-a-kind approach? That is yet to be seen.

Dmitri is a true artist in his approach, dedicated to the freedom of NFT art rather than the financial gain. The intent behind the art also makes him one of the top NFT artists to watch out for.

Beeple

Michael Joseph Winkelmann, better known by his professional name Beeple, is one of the most popular NFT artists.

A digital artist, graphic designer, and animator from the United States, Beeple is famous for using a variety of mediums to create phantasmagoric, comical works that make political and social commentary while referencing pop culture figures.

One of the pictures from ‘Everyday’ series.

Pursuant to a historic auction at Christie’s auction house, Beeple topped the best-selling NFT artist list for a long time. The piece “Everydays: The First 5000 Days,” which sold for $69,346,250.00, was largely responsible for mainstream media coverage of NFT sales. This was also the first time a well-known auction house sold crypto art and accepted bitcoin as payment.

Beeple’s pieces average $127,283.00 each, with a total of 1,351 sold. He has also continued his “Everydays” series on Instagram, where he posts digital creations daily. His work ranges from digital shapes and scenery to grotesque political illustrations and is realistic and absurd.

Beeple is free to experiment with his newfound wealth, and he recently released his first physical artwork, in November 2021. Of course, the “kinetic video sculpture” was auctioned alongside an NFT, bringing in $29 million at Christie’s.

How to Invest in NFT Art

The steps to be followed for investing in NFTs are:

STEP 1: Buying Ethereum on eToro

Most NFTs may be purchased with Ethereum, which can be bought securely on FCA regulated crypto platform eToro.

Sign up for an eToro account, verify your identity, and deposit funds if you don’t already have one. After your account has been validated and funded, go to Ethereum and choose how much you wish to buy.

You’ll need to transfer the Ethereum to your eToro Wallet once you’ve acquired it.

To do so, go to your eToro account’s Portfolio button, choose Ethereum, and then click Transfer to Wallet.

STEP 2: Downloading MetaMask

MetaMask is a cryptocurrency wallet that serves as a portal to the Ethereum-based decentralised finance (DeFi) and network finance (NFT) ecosystems.

It’s accessible as a mobile app for iOS and Android, as well as a browser-based add-on for Firefox and Google Chrome. You’ll need to download the programme from MetaMask.io, create a wallet, set a password, and save the recovery phrase whether you use the mobile or desktop version. The steps to open a MetaMask wallet are as follows:

1. In your Google Chrome browser, select the MetaMask logo in the upper right corner.
2. Read the terms and conditions and accept them. It’s possible that you’ll have to agree to 2 to 3 pages of terms.

• To create your wallet, enter a password and click “Create.”

1. For your vault, you’ll see a set of 12 “seed words.” Select “Save Seed Words as File” and save the “MetaMask Seed Words” file to a safe location. It will be required to gain access to your vault.
2. Once your seed words file has been secured, click “I’ve Copied It Somewhere Safe.” You will be redirected to your MetaMask wallet.

STEP 3: Sending Ethereum to MetaMask

You can now transfer Ethereum to your new MetaMask wallet.

To begin, open the eToro Wallet and select Ethereum from the Send menu.

Then open MetaMask, copy your new wallet’s address, and paste it into the eToro address field. After that, enter the amount of Ethereum you want to send and hit Send once more.

You can expect your transaction to take anywhere from a few minutes to over an hour, depending on how busy the Ethereum network is.

STEP 4: Signing up on an NFT Marketplace

Navigate to an NFT platform once your Ethereum has arrived in MetaMask.  You can sign up on OpenSea.io, the largest NFT platform and therefore perhaps the best NFT marketplace for artists. However it was hacked in early 2022, and there other NFT marketplace options.

Go to the wallet icon in the top right corner of the OpenSea homepage and select MetaMask. You will be asked to link your wallet.

After you’ve established a connection, you can begin browsing. OpenSea has a vast collection of collectible avatars and artwork, ranging in price from a few pennies to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

STEP 5: Finally buying the NFT

When you find an NFT that piques your interest, you usually have two choices: Buy now or make an offer. This essentially means that you have the option of purchasing the item at the stated price or placing a bid.

If you want to buy the item right away, click the Buy Now button to review the purchase details, then proceed to Checkout to review the gas fees. Finally, confirm your ownership of the NFT by clicking Confirm.

If you want to bid on the NFT, click the Make offer button, review the details, and enter your bid. Before confirming the transaction, you will need to convert your ETH to WETH.

Conclusion

Non-fungible tokens have been the pinnacle of digital success, through 2021 and continuing to be popular in 2024, whether in the form of NFT crypto art or other collectibles. They have evolved into a good investment asset and are expected to soar to new heights in 2024 and future years.

The digital space has become a perfect platform for NFT creators, crypto and digital enthusiasts and entrepreneurs, thanks to the prowess of blockchain and NFT.