The NFT space is flooding with new artists and projects on a daily basis. With so much supply, it can be difficult to determine which NFT projects are going to stand the test of time, and which ones are destined to fail. However, there are several NFT projects that currently stand out to me as having great potential to become some of the best in history.
Here are the top ten NFT projects and artists that stand out to me, and that you may want to keep your eyes on moving forward in 2023.
What NFT Projects Should I Watch in 2023?
1. VeeFriends
VeeFriends is an NFT project created by serial entrepreneur and web3 innovator Gary Vaynerchuk. Veefriends was created in 2021 and officially launched on May 11, 2021. The V1 project contains 10,255 NFTs, with a total of 268 different characters.
The Veefriends characters represent human traits that Gary most admires in both business and life in general. Each character is built on traits that Gary believes will lead you to happiness and success. He also created characters based on popular culture references.
This project offers holders a part of the intellectual property that Gary is going to build over the next 40-plus years. To provide holders with instant value, each VeeFriends holder gains access to Veecon, a four-day mega-conference with an extremely diverse lineup of speakers and performers, all gathering to talk business, web3, and more specifically NFTs.
Ultimately, this project is number one on the list because of the creator behind the project. Gary Vee is known for building many successful brands and businesses, and he’s considered to be one of the top entrepreneurs.
Gary doesn’t offer a way for people to invest in his work, that’s why VeeFriends is such a unique project. You get to invest in Gary and what he’s building over the course of his life.
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2. CryptoSkulls
CryptoSkulls are 10,000 collectible ERC-721 NFTs stored on Ethereum and Polygon blockchains. Each CryptoSkull character is a unique pixel art image. This project was originally minted in 2019 and is considered to be the second PFP project found on the Ethereum blockchain after CryptoPunks.
One of the best thing this project has going for it is its historical significance. Gary Vee even purchased his own for 100 ETH ($315,171.00). On top of that, some Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunk holders sold some of their personal NFTs to collect more CryptoSkulls, further solidifying their significance in the history of NFTs.
Each CryptoSkull avatar is a unique pixel art with its Uniqueness Index property. This property shows the total rareness of all image features. CryptoSkulls with rarer features has a lower Uniqueness Index.
In addition to being a cool collectible NFT, every CryptoSkull NFT is a playable token in the Gold of Skulls game. This game will be the first game where the uniqueness of the collectible token will affect the uniqueness of the player. To support game development the creators marked 1000 CryptoSkulls as Game Tokens. These tokens have extra features in the game and might be considered rarer for that fact.
If anything, the CryptoSkulls NFT project will go down in history as some of the first NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain, and the second PFP project after CryptoPunks.
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3. (The Ghost of) Frank Dukes
(The Ghost of) Frank Dukes is a generative audio & visual art project based on a generative algorithm developed by Ging (FNA Frank Dukes) over a course of three years. This collection launched with 9,999 NFTs total, on December 22, 2021.
Ging aims for this NFT project to be the foundation for the community that will be compromised of creators, music executives, and lovers of both art and music.
Holders of the GOFD NFT project will gain access and privileges that will allow them to invite a number of guests to access The Gost Library. If you’re familiar with Ging’s past work, then you know that he’s recognized for creating the new sample economy with his Kingsway Music Library which has been sampled by artists like Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Taylor Swift, and more.
The main reason you should watch this NFT project is that the creator Ging has already accomplished many great things in the music industry. Some of his first bigger collaborations were with G-Unit and the Wu-Tang Clan. Soon after, he skyrocketed to success and went on to make many hit records with some of the leading artists in the music industry.
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4. DutchTide
Dutchtide is an independent digital artist bringing Japan and the Netherlands together under the Dutchtide Studio brand and creating unique luxurious apartments as Tide Estates in the metaverse. Dutchtide’s art generally carries an emotion, symbolic value, or some other deep meaning you can feel in his work.
In September 2020 Dutchtide started the Tide Estates concept collection. It represents an idea he’s have had for a long time and has consistently been working toward. The goal is to create an ecosystem for artists, investors, and collectors.
As for Dutchtide Studios, DutchTide registered the name as an official company in December 2021 and is responsible for the hiring process of creating the Tide Estates metaverse and keeping others up to date on official announcements and future plans concerning his work.
Future plans are rumored to be with the likes of Muratpak — known as the Satoshi of crypto art. Other than that, DutchTide’s plans are not exactly clear, however, he remains extremely transparent with all of his work. You can view Dutchtide’s most recent roadmap for MidnightBreeze, where each step and the cost are broken down for everyone to see.
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5. ARThief
Arthief is a 14-year-old digital artist based in South Korea. His works explore games, technology, and pop culture. He’s been featured on local news stations and has been featured in several art shows for his unique work.
Some of the art shows include Crypto Art Week Asia—the world’s largest crypto art showcase—featuring more than 300 of the biggest names in digital art in Asia. He’s also been featured in NFT Villa Exhibition, the First Korean NFT Art Exhibition.
At such a young age, Arthief is known for making some very unique pieces of art. His style can be a little dark, and he even has his own characters such as Monitor Head and Murderer. He’s very diverse in the range of work he does, from digital illustrations to short clips, and he even makes his own music.
Although Arthief doesn’t have a huge collection of work yet, the art that he does have available is truly amazing. I am keeping my eye on Arthief, considering how young of an artist he is, he’s got great potential.
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6. ThankYouX
ThankYouX is an artist influenced by the pop clichés and vibrant colors of the NYC graffiti movement, as well as technological advancement. From LA street stencils to painting and sculpture shows in London, LA, Miami, and New York to name a few, he’s come a long way.
He has received worldwide acclaim for his geometric cube paintings and huge-size abstract works, which he is now incorporating into his street style in a more distinctive way. He made the transition into the NFT space in 2020, and now ThankYouX is merging the physical and digital worlds together with a one-of-a-kind collection of original paintings and NFTs.
Moreover, ThankYouX has had some pretty insane NFT sales already and has collaborated with the famous composer Hans Zimmer. A timed auction for their collaboration NFT project, Sound of Color, ran from July 20 through July 23, 2021, and the works sold for a total of $485,100.00 at the Phillips auction house.
Knowing how passionate ThankYouX is about creating art, there’s no doubt in my mind that he will continue to grow and innovate in the NFT and web3 space as a household name.
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7. Curio Cards
Curio Cards is a collection of the first art NFTs on Ethereum. The project was originally introduced on May 9, 2017, and features 30 unique sets of cards from seven different artists. Curio Cards is mentioned in the initial ERC-721 NFT standard and predates CryptoPunks.
A lot of the Curio Cards NFT project significance comes from their age. Not only is it the first NFT art project on the Ethereum blockchain, but it’s one of the first projects on the Ethereum blockchain in history. As well, I find Curio Cards to be unique considering they were created by 7 different digital artists:
- Cryptograffiti
- Cryptopop
- Daniel Friedman
- Marisol Vengas
- Phneep
- Robek World
- Thoros of Myr
The proof of Curio Cards’ historical value has already been established at Christie’s Auction House on October 1, 2021, when a full set of all 30 cards, and the 17b misprint sold for a massive 393 ETH ($1.2 million). With that being said, Curio Cards are still rather affordable if you want to own a historical piece of NFT art history. I believe this OG project still has a lot of room to appreciate in value as time goes on.
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8. 8th Project
8th Project is a French-born artist who has currently expatriated to Yucatan, Mexico and has been there since 2018. He is a self-taught artist and is free of any artistic education. He is known for his unique and one-of-a-kind geometrical style of work.
He began doodling and destructing illustrations, out of which his unique style evolved. Some of his heavy influence comes from another artist named Wassily Kandinsky—a Russian painter often credited as one of the pioneers of abstraction in western art. 8th Project still has a lot of room for growth and further development.
Some art exhibitions that 8th Wonders has been a part of include:
- Pixan Galeria – A virtual exhibition from January to March 2021
- Hotel Casa Olivia – an exhibition represented by Pixan Galeria
Eventually, 8th Project made the transition to the NFT space when he began selling his art as NFTs on OpenSea. I believe that 8th Project will continue to excel in the NFT space as one of the greatest artists in the NFT space. His passion and true love for what he does is too great to not accomplish such feat.
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9. W3rsip (Lee Kyungho)
Lee Kyungho, aka W3rsip, is a street photographer and illustrator based in Seoul, South Korea. W3rsip creates various types of digital art using digital, film, and his iPhone camera and leverages tools like Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop to take his work to the next level.
Through his work, W3rsip aims to convey meaningful messages and showcase his perspectives and experiences through all of his work. Whether you’re looking at his photos or his illustrations, you are getting a look into the mind of Lee as a human.
W3rsip’s work is represented in various collaborations and activities including:
2019
- Interviews and publications about street photography in Digital Camera Magazine (South Korea)
- Interview about street photography was posted on the main Korean portal site Naver, in the Culture-related channel
2020
- Lee was serialized about street photography in Digital Camera Magazine for the entire year
2021
- W3rsip began creating digital art for the cover of Towards 0%, a novel by Seo Yi-Je
- Opened a solo exhibition based on digital art and street photography in an underground space in Seongsu-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul.
- Collaborated with the artist book production with Fujifilm and Digital Camera Magazine
I would keep an eye on W3rsip as he grows as a local artist in South Korea and as a force to be reckoned with in the NFT space. His diverse set of skills and ability to express his perspectives are what make him a superb artist in my opinion.
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10. Rare Pepe
Rare Pepe is a character created in 2005 by Matt Furie in a comic known as Boy’s Club. It didn’t take long before Pepe became an Internet meme in 2008, popularized through Myspace, Gaia Online, and 4chan.
In September 2016, the first rare Pepes were minted on Bitcoin as some of the first NFTs, pre-dating all the Ethereum-based NFTs. From 2016 to 2018 various artists around the world were creating different variations of Pepe the frog and then traded them on the Counterparty platform.
This platform was created by developers solely for exchanging these digital collectibles, as an entire community had been growing around Rare Pepe digital collectibles. This ended up being the first NFT art market to exist.
Today, you can find the original Rare Pepe NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain through Emblem Vault. Emblem Vault is a completely decentralized token developed to trade tokens from any blockchain on any Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) based Blockchain.
There are many editions of Rare Pepe NFTs, all with a varying number of the total supply. Rare Pepe NFTs have a supply range anywhere from as low as a hundred, to hundreds of thousands, depending on which edition you’re looking at.
Obviously, the total supply available also determines the overall rarity of the NFT, so it’s best to do your own research when buying these NFTs as some are not nearly as valuable as others.
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Final thoughts
The NFT space is exploding with numerous artists, creators, and brands from all around the world, each with their own vision and passion for what they do. These ten NFT artists and projects that I’ve listed are only a small glimpse into a wonderful world of creators.
I believe that every person and project I’ve listed in this article not only has the potential to be great artists and brand names in the web3 space but may also be a good investment as an NFT collector.
Of course, you should always do your own research and come to your own conclusions as I am not an advisor, nor is this investment advice. I’m simply a person who enjoys collecting NFTs and I’m always looking for other people and projects who have a vision of their own so that I can help them reach their goals and bring their vision to fruition.
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