Early NFT projects: a sourced shortlist

Question: "Find me early nft project" Research date: 2026-10-05 How I read the question: The request is ambiguous. This report reads "early" as historically early: the pioneering NFT projects from 2014 to 2017, before the ERC-721 standard. The other reading, new projects to get into early as an investment, is covered in §5. I don't recommend any projects for that reading.

Labels used below: [Fact] means a source I fetched or searched states it. [Inference] is my own interpretation. [Uncertain] means sources disagree or I could not verify the claim.

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1. Short answer

These are the most widely cited early NFT projects, oldest first:

#	Project	Chain	Date	Why it matters
1	Quantum (Kevin McCoy and Anil Dash)	Namecoin	2 May 2014	Widely called the first NFT
2	Spells of Genesis (EverdreamSoft)	Bitcoin / Counterparty	11 Mar 2015 (first card)	Early tokenized game cards
3	Etheria	Ethereum	Oct 2015	Leading candidate for first NFT project on Ethereum
4	Rare Pepe	Bitcoin / Counterparty	Sep 2016 to 2018	Early community art collection
5	Curio Cards	Ethereum	9 May 2017	First art NFT project on Ethereum
6	CryptoPunks (Larva Labs)	Ethereum	Jun 2017	10,000 generative characters, claimed for free
7	CryptoKitties (Dapper Labs)	Ethereum	28 Nov 2017	Helped lead to the ERC-721 standard

Earlier still, Colored Coins on Bitcoin (2012) is usually listed as a precursor experiment rather than an NFT project (Wikipedia: NFT).

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2. Evidence by project

2.1 Quantum (2014)

• [Fact] Minted on the Namecoin blockchain on 2 May 2014 by Kevin McCoy, using technology he built with Anil Dash (Hyperallergic; Wikipedia: NFT).
• [Fact] Sold at Sotheby's "Natively Digital" sale on 10 June 2021 for about $1.4M including fees (Hyperallergic).
• [Fact] A later lawsuit over who owned the token, Free Holdings v. McCoy and Sotheby's, was decided in favour of McCoy and Sotheby's (Artnet; Center for Art Law).
• [Inference] "First NFT" is a label given after the fact. The word "NFT" did not exist in 2014, so whether Quantum counts depends on how you define one.

2.2 Spells of Genesis (2015)

• [Fact] A blockchain trading-card game by EverdreamSoft on Counterparty, a layer on Bitcoin. Its first on-chain card (FDCARD) was issued on 11 March 2015 (DappRadar; Counterparty forum).
• [Uncertain] Some secondary sources call it "the first NFT collection." I did not check that claim against primary chain data.

2.3 Etheria (October 2015)

• [Fact] Launched in October 2015, about three months after Ethereum's mainnet went live, and presented at DEVCON 1 in London (Decrypt; Internet Archive: Devcon 1 talk).
• [Fact] It has 457 hexagonal land tiles priced at 1 ETH each. Most went unsold until 13 March 2021, when all tiles sold within about 24 hours for roughly $1.4M in total (Wikipedia: NFT; Decrypt).
• [Inference] Etheria is the strongest candidate for the first NFT project on Ethereum. One source itself calls the "first" label "fraught" (Etherscan blog).

2.4 Rare Pepe (2016–2018)

• [Fact] Issued on Bitcoin through Counterparty starting in September 2016. The collection has 1,774 cards minted between 2016 and 2018 (Wikipedia: Rare Pepe; CoinDesk).
• [Fact] ERC-721 names Rare Pepe and Curio Cards as earlier "limited edition, collectible tokens," but describes them as sets of fungible tokens rather than individually distinguishable assets (EIP-721).

2.5 Curio Cards (May 2017)

• [Fact] Launched on 9 May 2017 by Travis Uhrig, Thomas Hunt and Rhett Creighton. It has 30 card designs by 7 artists, plus a misprint card "17b" (Curio Cards docs; Wikipedia: Curio Cards).
• [Fact] A complete set sold at Christie's on 1 October 2021 for 393 ETH, about $1.2M (Wikipedia: Curio Cards).
• [Fact] The project's own docs describe it as "the first NFT Art Show on Ethereum" (Curio Cards docs). That is the project describing itself.

2.6 CryptoPunks (June 2017)

• [Fact] Larva Labs launched it in June 2017: 10,000 characters that anyone with an Ethereum wallet could claim for free. All of them were claimed within about eight days (Larva Labs).
• [Fact] ERC-721 describes CryptoPunks as "partially ERC-20 compatible" (EIP-721).

2.7 CryptoKitties (Nov 2017) and ERC-721 (2018)

• [Fact] Dapper Labs revealed it at ETH Waterloo on 19 October 2017 and launched it on 28 November 2017. At its peak it accounted for about 25% of Ethereum network traffic (Wikipedia: CryptoKitties).
• [Fact] EIP-721 was created on 24 January 2018. Dieter Shirley of CryptoKitties is one of its authors, and it says CryptoKitties is "compatible with an earlier version of this standard" (EIP-721).

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3. Facts vs. inferences: summary

• Well-attested facts: the dates, chains, supplies and auction results above. Each is backed by at least one cited page, and most by two.
• Inferences: the ranking by "importance," and statements about which project is "first" on a given chain.
• Contested: the title of "first NFT." It depends on the definition used: a unique token, a collection, a project on Ethereum, or a token that follows a standard. Quantum (2014), Spells of Genesis (2015) and Etheria (2015) are each called "first" by different sources.

4. Limits of this research

• Most sources are secondary: Wikipedia, news outlets and project docs. I did not check deployment dates or supplies directly on-chain (Etherscan, Namecoin, or Counterparty explorers).
• Larva Labs' and Curio Cards' descriptions of their own projects are first-party claims.
• I gathered no current market prices or floor values, and none of this report is investment advice. Prices for these collections change quickly.
• Other early or "historical" projects such as MoonCats (2017) and EtherRock (2017) are mentioned in sources but not researched in detail here.

5. Unanswered questions

1. Did you mean "early" as historical, or as early-stage investment? If you meant new projects to buy into early, this report does not answer that. Picking those needs a chain, a budget, a risk tolerance and live data, and any shortlist would be speculation that cannot be verified.
2. Is a specific chain wanted? Bitcoin and Counterparty, Ethereum, and Namecoin each have a different "first."
3. Do you want an on-chain check of deployment transactions (contract addresses and block numbers) for these projects?

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Sources