On May 1, the auction house announced an addition to Sotheby’s Metaverse in the form of a “dynamic destination to collect, buy, and sell remarkable digital works.” The blockchain-based NFT marketplace would be primarily for secondary sales of digital art. According to the announcement, the marketplace will feature a rotating, curated selection of leading artists hand-picked by Sotheby’s specialists. The list of artists includes Diana Sinclair, IX Shells, Sarah Zucker, Refik Anadol, Sofia Crespo, Sebastiao Salgado and Tyler Hobbs.
The next evolution of #SothebysMetaverse is here! The most trusted and dynamic destination to collect, buy and sell remarkable digital works.
— Sotheby's Metaverse (@Sothebysverse) May 1, 2023
Explore: https://t.co/hZvYIkO3xx pic.twitter.com/dCkaCKlXVm
The integrated sales system will be fully on-chain via the Ethereum and Polygon networks, and users can pay in either ETH or MATIC. Secondary-market sales will honor artist resale royalties on-chain through smart contracts, with cryptocurrency payments automatically distributed after secondary sales.
In 2021, Sotheby’s delved into NFTs and made more than $120 million. Its largest auction was by digital artist Pak which went for about $16.8 million. Sotheby’s Metaverse started off with the Natively Digital Sale which featured 53 pieces from 19 NFT artists.
In the coming June, Sotheby’s Metaverse will also launch a new digital gallery through oncyber, a metaverse platform. The gallery will host an exhibition of works from its secondary market, with a room dedicated to each of the 13 inaugural artists. Another room will be curated with digital artwork from the collection of Cozomo de’Medici, a prominent patron of NFTs.
Other auction houses have also entered the metaverse and NFT realm. In September 2022, Christie’s launched Christie’s 3.0, a platform selling NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain. We continue to observe.
