This website is focused on NFTs (Non Funglible Tokens) evolution and first uses of NFTs in relation to Art and Music. So I'm not going to mentioning crypto art pioneers like @cryptograffiti, @coin_artist and others unless linked to novel or first time NFT use. The information is evolving and there maybe mistakes.
2021
- burn.art - Pak's project where you burn NFTs for $ASH
- Eminem - NFT drop on Nifty Gateway
- "The Currency Project" by Damien Hirst - on Layer 2 solution for ether
- Russia’s State Hermitage Museum - to Host NFT Art Exhibition
- May 2021 - digitalax.xyz - first ever MultiToken Bridge — this includes the ability to move both a Parent 721 token and its Child 1155 material NFT components between Mainnet and Polygon
- April 2021 - Mad Dog Jones - first "replicator" NFT
- April 2021 - Pantone - first Pantone colours on chain NFTs
- April 2021 - Elementum - NFT platform
- April 2021 - oncyber.io - 3d gallery NFT platform
- April 2021 - lazy.com - NFT platform to show off NFTs
- April 2021 - cargo.build - Cargo uses EIP2981 - a standardized way to handle royalty payments for ERC-721 tokens, including publicly viewable information and notification of payment event
- April 2021 - Overly Attached Girlfriend (a bit of internet history) - NFT sells for 400,000 dollars on foundation.app
- April 2021 - Blog Post - sold for 3K through Zora - explanation here Source 2
- April 14th 2021 - Pak auction at Sotheby's - first crypto-native collaboration with a major auction house
- April 5th 2021 - Meta_VS - biggest NFT exhibition ever
- April 3rd 2021 - Graffiti Queens - biggest all female NFT exhibition ever
- April 2021 - Snoop Dog makes an NFT
- April 2021 - "Virtual Niche: Have You Ever Seen Memes in the Mirror?" - physical representations of NFTs exhibition by Block Create Art
- April 2021 - Olta - new interactive NFT platform - details TBC
- March 2021 - John Cleese makes NFT
- March 2021 - kalamint.io - NFT marketplace on Tezos
- April 2021 - Mike Tyka - first IPFS backup NFT
- 26th March 2021 - New York Times article by Kevin Roose - first NYT NFT sells for 350 eth
- 25th March 2021 - Blockparty v2 - NFT platform luanch
- 24th March 2021 - TIME magazine - first TIME cover NFT - 'Is Fiat Money Dead?'
- March 2021 - Mr Doob - first game NFT on the tezos blockchain - bug free version
- March 2021 - Lionel Radisson - first interactive NFT on the tezos blockchain
- March 2021 - Mario Klingemann - famous artist making original interactive NFTs on h=n
- March 2021 - Hic et Nunc - decentralised NFT platform on Tezos blockchain - created by Rafael Lima
- 19th March 2021 - feralfile.com - first type of NFT that hashes artwork with details of collector and artwork???
- March ? 2021 - Async Art Music
- March 2021 - Pak auction announced at Sotherby's
- March 2021 - Damien Hirst says he will be making NFTs Source
- March 2021 - Elon Musk makes an NFT that is a song about NFTs (not a first but notable)
- March 2021 - first NFT house
- March 2021 - 'The Greatest NFT Film Ever Made' - first NFT film about NFTs
- March 2021 - Hackatao: first NFT to be listed on the Vastari platform for Galleries and Museums
- March 2021 - Most expensive NFT Tweet - by Jack Dorsey
- March 2021 - Beeple artwork resells for 6.6 million
- March 2021 - Beeple Christies Auction - the most expensive NFT $69.3 million sold
- February 2021 - 3Lau - first music artist albums NFT sells for 11 million
- February 2021 - FEWOCiOUS, an 18-year old in collab with a virtual sneaker brand RTFKT Studios - sells 3 million dollars worth of sneakers in 7 mins
- February 2021 - Kings of Leon - band album NFT - First NFT album Digital Vinyl by Francis Kneebone
- February 2021 - Paras.id - NFTs on near blockchain
- February 2021 - Murall - first collabrative mural NFT platform
- Paris Hilton makes an NFT
- Linsey Lohan and Mark Cuban mint stuff on rarible.com
- Mark Cuban discovers NFTs
- Lady Pheonix (Lady Phe) - introduces NFTs into clubhouse and coins phrase 'audio reactive NFTs'
- NBA topshots - first FLOW blockchain NFTs
- Nyan Cat - after 'the duck song' the first Youtube legends NFT - sells for alot of money
- Charged Particles - turn your NFT into a programmable basket of tokens even other NFTs - defi meets art
- Aaachgochi - onchain NFT defi - defi meets art
- Eulerbeats - first generate your own music from NFTs assets linked to blockchain (not sure if thats right). Also unique pricing model
- Hash Masks - first dynamically nameable artworks on blockchain
- January 2021 - The first Neurofeedback NFT (instructions in locked content)
- January 21st 2021 - Future Art - first Crypto Art Festival
- January 2021 - Zora - new kind of NFT called a zNFT that extends allows the NFT to function as a marketplace as well - paradigm shift
- January 2021 - Unigrids - first interactive NFT with music stored onchain
2020
- January 12th 2020 - Words: onchain words as NFT - "new words are minted by concatenating (combining) two existing words"
- January 14th 2020 - the first math-based pixel art was created on onchain as NFT
- January 2020 - the first math-based RGB tokens
- January 19th 2020 - ChainFaces, "an on-chain art contract that generates faces from a limited number of characters"
- January 2020 - first NFTs for the AI art collectors of the future
- February 15th 2020 - Somnium Space - first VR land NFT ? (Maybe was Cryptovoxels?)
- February 7th 2020 - Avastars - onchain NFT images of avatars
- February 2020 - MagNFT - The NFT Art Magazine - first NFT magazine
- March 2020 - Nifty Gateway - NFT marketplace that also takes fiat payments
- May 2020 - Foundation.app - NFT marketplace
- Skeenee - first burning of IRL artworks and minting as NFTs
- Jonathan Mann - @songadaymann - first song NFT on ether blockchain
- 89 sec Atomized (2018) by Eve Sussman on Snark.art - Artwork broken into NFTs
- JOY - created NFT with multi image and 3D file formats that will be extended to work in more Metaverse and AR locations
- Valuables - first NFTs of tweets
- Unisocks - NFT for socks - more to story
- $TAPE - RAC sold first NFT for a cassette tape (on Zora) (I think)
- Saint Fame - first internet owned fashion house producing NFTs
- June 2020 - NFT Showroom - Hive NFTs
- June 2020 - The first cross-chain NFT marketplace - https://ghostmarket.io
- June 17, 2020 - Dada.nyc - "DADA’s radical separation of art from the market includes a new form of exchanging value in which tokenized digital drawings (NFTs) are the medium of exchange"
- August 2020 - verticalcryptoart - first twitter NFT art review (powersurge first comedy version)
- August 2020 - Atomic Assets’ NFT Creator - Wax blockchain NFTs
- Mintable.app - first Zilliqa blockchain NFT marketplace
- August 2020 - Infinft - first fully onchain minting of NFTs (the artwork files and meta data are stored on chain as well an identifier)
- Async.art - the world's first programmable artwork, First Supper NFT
- Spaced Painter - first 4K video NFT
- Pranksy Land - first NFT land and NFT art sale combo
- March 2020 - Nifty Gateway - first NFT marketplace allowing fiat purchases
- Artblocks.io - first generative art code on blockchain (not sure if thats right)
- Don't Buy Meme - first NFT artworks as interest? - defi and art collide
- Niftx - first fractionalised NFT ownership
- Cargo.build - crypto currency stored in NFT (gems)
- Decentraland - NFTs can be shown in world - NFT galleries launch of main NFT platforms - Knownorigin.io, Superrare.io, Makersplace.com, Mintbase (gensis art week)
- NFTX - first NFTs as indexed funds ? (maybe 2021)
- WhaleShark - first social coin to get listed on coin gecko ?
- Decentraland - first metaverse NFT fashion show
- NFT wearables - cryptovoxels
- Decentraland - 100xart show - first NFT metaverse multi gallery artshow
- NFT trash art movement - 64 Gallon Toter - ROBNESS
- Max Osiris - first NFT artist to be banned from multiple NFT platforms :) and to mint a graph as NFT (his social currency crashing to zero)
- March 2020 - ROBNESS and Max Osiris - first NFT collab
- March 11th 2020 - Connie Digital - first NFT hiphop song (HOLDING) on MakersPlace - Source
- Bronx zoo in cryptovvoxels - first shared land NFT (at least best known)
- June 2020 - - first Powersurge NFT comedy
- WIP - first NFT souvenirs of events in Metaverse
- Pak - 'red' - first one pixel one colour NFT
- Pak - 'the title' offer to Christies - first performance art piece NFT
- Cryptovoxels - first voxel NFT
- Cryptoavators - first cross metaverse avatar NFT
- Cryptomotors - first cross metaverse car NFT
- Matt Kane - first physical artwork with an NFT sale at Christies
- Hackatao 'Hack the Tao' - first NFT Art as a 3d voxel game
- Bacca Arts - first graphic novel as NFT
- Proof of Beauty - first snapshot of ether blockchain as seed for generative art NFT
- Osinachi - first artist on rarible.com to sell an NFT for up to 1 eth
- GrowYourBase and NIFTEX - create the first-ever fractionalized CryptoArt NFT Bundle
- November 2020 - ephimera.com - NFT platform - "intersection of traditional fine art and cryptoart"
- November 2020 - BeyondNFT - first interactive and NFT games
- September 11th 2020 - SHE ART - first all women NFT art exhibition in Cryptovoxels
2019
- February 20th 2019 - Descontrol - presented at http://NFT.NYC.
- March 5th 2019 - "Despidida" - presented at Art + Music.
- March 23rd 2019 - "Sight Unseen" - was made live and auctioned at RadicalxChange.
- @AndrewSteinwold - not the first NFT podcast but one of the most important
- March 21st 2019 - Blockade - first large scale airdrop on ether - airdropped 6,150 NFTs to OG OpenSea user wallets on Ethereum.
- April 2019 - Autoglyphs - first onchain generative NFT art on the blockchain by Larva Labs
- April 2019 - Editional - first mobile app for minting NFTs
- April 2019 - Makersplace.com - NFT marketplace
- May 3rd 2019 - Simply Maria - presented at CADAF NY
- May 10th 2019 - Soul In The Machine - was made live and auctioned at Ethereal Summit
- May 18th 2019 - Animalia - presented at Rare Art Fest 2.
- August 2019 - clovers.network - first icon NFTs
- August 2019 - Rendar Gallery - first street art NFT gallery opening in a Metaverse
- October 2019 - Rarible - NFT Market place
- November 28th 2019 - DADAGAN - presented at TATE
- November 28th 2019 - Screens: An Exploration - made live at TATE Modern
- December 7th 2019 - first NFT report
2018
- January 2018 - Rare Art Festival - significant moment in NFT history - Source 1
- January 2018 - Auction of Homer Rare Pepe (at Rare Art Festival) - sells for 38,500 dollars - Source 1
- January 25th 2018 - Neon District - Cyber Punk RPG (using NFTs ?)
- February 14th 2018 - crypto artist Kevin Abosch - sells an ERC-20 token that was purchased by a group of 10 investors for 1 million dollars
- March 2018 - Open Zeppelin: NFT standard, ERC721 full implementation
- March 2018 - Rare bits - first NFT marketplace
- March 14th 2018 - "Pop Art" for Kitty hats
- July 17th 2018 - @songadaymann and @mattgcondon - the first NFT focused podcast
- April 2018 - SuperRare.io - NFT marketplace
- April 2018 - KnownOrigin.io - NFT marketplace
- April 22th 2018 - JOY - first 3D art on Blockchain
- JOY - first crypto artist creating his own NFT contract
- JOY - first making music and video accompaniments to his NFT art
- JOY - first to hard fork his NFT contract, into its current form
- April 2018 - Cryptovoxels - NFTs can be shown in world
- July 2018 - the first NFT conference
- XCOPY mints some gifs on SuperRare.io
- FireFly - Air-Gap Hardware Wallet for Ethereum emits NFTs
- July 11th 2018 - CryptoArte - first NFT collection telling history of ethereum
- September 2018 - Maecenas.io - tokenises an Andy Warhol painting which is the first time a piece of fine art from the traditional market is tokenised and sold on the blockchain
2017
- dada.nyc - 8 collections issued between (2017-2019) - Pop Art/Kitty Hats collab, Soul In The Machine, María García, Descontrol, Sight Unseen, Animalia, DADAGAN, Art + Music, & Sketches of Screens at Tate
- March 17th 2017 - @ScrillaVentura and @squizzi - first art and blockchain podcast
- March 2017 — Rare Pepes on Ethereum - Peperium “decentralized meme marketplace and trading card game (TCG) that allowed anyone to create memes that live eternally on IPFS and Ethereum.”
- May 2017 - Curio cards minted tokens on Ethereum
- June 2017 — Cryptopunks - Larva Labs (John Watkinson and Matt Hall)
- Aug 9th 2017 - Mooncats: first NFT cats - 'first bonding curve, first naming mechanism' ? Source
- Nov 23rd 2017 - Crypto Kitties - Dapper Labs - Source 1, Source 2
- Kitty Hats - Source 1, Source 2
- Dec 24th 2017 - Crypto Cats
- August 2017 - Decentraland - sells land tokens (not NFTs but implements NFT's in late 2018)
- October 5th 2017 - "Creeps & Weirdos" - exhibition on dada.nyc
- December 2017 - EtherRock - pet rocks on Ethereum (not quite an NFT)
- December 28th, 2017 - OpenSea - one of the first decentralized exchange and marketplace for digital collectibles
2016
- April 2016 - Spells of Gensis on Counterparty (level 2 'NFT' app on Bitcoin)
- August 2016 - 'Force of Will' cards on Counterparty
- October 2016 — first Rare Pepes on Counterparty
- September 2016 - first gif UFOPEPE minted on BTC using counterparty
- DJ Pepe - RareScrilla.com @ScrillaVentura - first Audio NFT
2015
- ??? 2015 - left.gallery - early online gallery that would adopt NFTs in the future
- October 2015 - first NFT house - built in Etheria
- October 2015 - Etheria - the first pixel-on-chain NFTs ever created (deployed to Ethereum in October 2015), Source 2 - also, first virtual land on the blockchain
- April 2015 - Harm van den Dorpel - claims to first artist to sell an NFT to an institution for Bitcoin
- March 11th 2015 - 'Spells of Genesis' by Everdreamsoft
2014
- February 20th 2014 - Rob Myers - early blockchain art pioneer - had he minted a single MYSOUL it would have been the first NFT
- April 7th 2014 - THING - possible contender for first NFT? according to Loonardo Joe Vinci
- May 3rd 2014 - Qauntum - first NFT according to Sotheby's
- Trading card game and meme trading on Counterparty - founded by Robert Dermody, Adam Krellenstein, and Evan Wagner; "A peer-to-peer financial platform and distributed, open-source Internet protocol built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain"
- First art NFT on Counterparty - mccoyspace
- first NFT and first gif NFT - Source 2
- Monegraph - created by Kevin McCoy and Anil Dash - Monetized Graphics (NFT could have been called this although NFT is a bigger concept as covers more than art) for a created image was assigned a blockchain key and value storable in a NameCoin wallet
- September 2014 - NILIcoin - 'The artwork which will carry the value of the NILI coin are real objects, paintings and works on paper.'
- bitcorns, memorychain, force of will, databits, penisium, Bitgirls, diecast
2012
- Colored coins - not NFTs but moving in that direction
2011
- a project by Dan Kaminsky surfaces poems, ASCII art and more found in the Bitcoin blockchain
- first art in blockchain? Source