NFT
Art auction house Sotheby’s is expanding its non-fungible token (NFT) art offerings by releasing a specially curated, peer-to-peer secondary marketplace.
Through its Web3 branch, Sotheby’s Metaverse will now offer instant collector-to-collector transactions on its platform. The integrated sales system will be fully on-chain through the Ethereum and Polygon networks and users will be able to pay in ETH or MATIC.
Sotheby’s Metaverse says it will continue to honor artist royalties through smart contracts on its resale platform that automatically pays artists based on their selected on-chain royalty rate.
“Sotheby’s commitment to honoring artist royalties comes amid a wider royalty debate within the NFT community, and indicates Sotheby’s artist-first ethos as one of the few major NFT marketplaces committed to resale royalties for artists,” the platform said in a press release.
Also see: Art Blocks co-founder Erick Calderon uses free market ideals to defend NFT royalties
Artists in the Sotheby’s secondary marketplace change every few months. The platform launches with works from 13 leading digital artists, including Tyler Hobbs, Claire Silver, XCOPY, Diana Sinclair, Pindar van Arman and others.
“The ability to expand Sotheby’s Metaverse with a fully on-chain peer-to-peer marketplace is a significant step forward in our evolution within the digital art and collecting space,” said Michael Bouhanna, Sotheby’s vice president and head of NFTs and digital art in a press release. “To commemorate this event by opening up our secondary market to a hand-picked group of artists, many of whom have been at the forefront of the movement and brought digital art to the world’s attention, Sotheby’s commitment to the NFT community and to creating a space for discerning collectors.”
The 275-year-old auction house first got into NFTs in April 2021 and has earned more than $120 million in NFT sales in total. The platform has enabled some of NFT’s record sales, including a “Covid Alien” CryptoPunk sold for $11.7 million in June 2021, World Wide Web source code sold for $5.4 million in July 2021, and a rare Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT that sold for $3.4 million in October 2021.
Also see: Sotheby’s Relaunches Glitch Digital Art Sales After Representation
Sotheby’s Metaverse also plans to launch a digital art gallery in June through the metaverse platform Oncyber, featuring several rooms curated by various artists and collectors, including the pseudonymous Cozomo De Medici.