Sotheby has launched an online secondary marketplace for its curated non-fungible tokens (NFTs). More than 24% of the global art auction sales happen at Sotheby, and the company is pushing to create a secondary marketplace where NFTs can be bought and sold.
The Sotheby NFT marketplace is part of the 279-year-old auction house's objective to push its way through the sale of digital assets. They announced on Monday through a tweet, stating how the Sotheby NFT marketplace would work.
From their announcement, they were clear that their new marketplace was built by their Metaverse unit. But unlike most NFT marketplace, Sotheby's will be quite different in their processes. First, the sellers of the NFTs which would appear at the Sotheby auction would be handpicked by a group of specialists from the company. When these NFT artists are picked by the committee, buyers will now be free to make transactions on the platform.
"The next evolution of #Sotheby's Metaverse is here! The most trusted and dynamic destination to collect, buy and sell remarkable digital works. Featuring a rotating, curated selection of leading artists hand-picked by Sotheby’s specialists, providing expert guidance and context for each work, from thematic presentations to artist spotlights, for an easy-to-navigate experience designed for discovery," the company announced in a tweet. Apparently, the auction firm has already made a list of artists to pioneer the opening of the Sotheby NFT marketplace. Some artists mentioned in their tweets are XCOPY, Tyler Hobbs, and Claire Silver.
More details show that the NFT marketplace would be fully on-chain and offer peer-to-peer transactions. The two major blockchains that were mentioned were Ethereum and Polygon blockchain. In other words, Sotheby is planning an NFT marketplace where transactions can occur on Polygon and Ethereum blockchains. There's also a resale policy where artists would receive some percentage of the original price of their NFTs whenever it is resold to another person. Sotheby has pegged the resale percentage at 2.5%.
Sotheby's Long Interest in Digital Arts
Sotheby is arguably the first adopter of cryptocurrencies in the auction world. They have been looking for a means through which they can enter into the crypto market. The auction firm finally found its breakthrough in 2021 when it made a huge sale through cryptocurrencies.
The auction firm sold a 101.38-carat diamond for HK$95.1 million (US$12.1 million). The auction took place using an anonymous cryptocurrency in Hong Kong. Since then, the company has made much progress in keeping up with the crypto market. The most recent development in their progress is the launch of the NFT marketplace, where buyers and sellers can make transactions.
The company is already making progress with NFT sales. They announced in April that they would auction an NFT artwork belonging to the bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital named the Grails. "One of the most significant collections of digital art ever assembled is coming to auction at Sotheby's across a series of multiple sales throughout 2023.
It all starts 19 May during the Marquee Sale Week at Sotheby’s New York."
"GRAILS, formed as part of 3AC primarily in 2021, is unparalleled in its celebration of the prominent artists who helped bring NFTs and digital art to the cultural mainstream through their innovative and conceptual approaches," the company added on Twitter.