Luxury auction house Christie’s has announced the launch of an on-chain platform for non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Christie’s 3.0, the “first-ever global auction house to host fully on-chain sales”, is a project built by Manifold, Chainalysis, and Spatial which allows for auctions to be carried out on the Ethereum blockchain network from start to finish.
The first ever global auction house to host fully on-chain sales: introducing Christie’s 3.0
Built from the ground up together with three leading companies in the Web3 community @manifoldxyz , @chainalysis & @spatialxr. (1/4)https://t.co/3zcQxNtBLy
— Christie's (@ChristiesInc) September 27, 2022
In a series of tweets from the auction house’s official Twitter account, all transactions – including post-sale on the platform – will be automatically recorded on the blockchain. “We recognise and bring young emerging artists to an international and digitally savvy market,” writes Christie’s.
The launch of Christie’s 3.0 marks a new era in digital art, where existing Christie’s clients can connect to NFT artists “via a sophisticated and secure blockchain-native platform for sales.”
“By incorporating regulatory tools, such as anti-money laundering and sales tax, we have built an inclusive solution where both veteran and new NFT collectors can feel secure in transacting with Christie’s 3.0,” said Nicole Sales Giles, Christie’s director of digital art sales.
The first sales on Christie’s 3.0 are a series of 9 new NFTs from visual artist Diana Sinclair, which have been tailor-made to celebrate the launch of Christie’s 3.0. Titled “Phases”, the online auction also runs in the duration of a solo exhibition on view at Christie’s New York. Bidding will start September 28 2022, and will run until October 11, 2022.
Although established 255 years ago, Christie’s has been supportive of new innovations in the art market, and has sold NFTs since the digital asset boom in early 2021. In February 2021, Christie’s wrapped the sale of “EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS” by crypto artist Beeple with an impressive winning bid of $69.3 million.
Since then, Christie’s has taken bids for rare NFTs such as Bored Apes, CryptoPunks, and Curio Cards, as more buyers have been eager to include NFTs in their collections.
Other leading auction houses have also stepped up to include NFTs in their offerings for art sales, expanding the art market to include digital assets. Notably, Sotheby’s launched its own NFT platform, Sotheby’s Metaverse, in October 2021 and has released six NFT collections since.
