Sotheby’s Auction House Introduces On-Chain NFT Secondary Market

Sotheby’s Launches On-Chain NFT Secondary Market

Luxury auction house Sotheby’s has developed a fully on-chain sales system where users can purchase curated NFTs on the Ethereum and Polygon networks. The addition of this new on-chain marketplace now allows digital art collectors to purchase secondary NFTs.

Curated Selection of Leading Artists

While many pre-existing NFT marketplaces already host peer-to-peer sales of digital artworks, the auction house is attempting to separate itself by offering a “rotating, curated selection of leading artists hand-picked by Sotheby’s specialists.” According to a Sotheby’s May 1 announcement on Twitter, the platform will launch featuring works from 13 prominent digital artists, including the pseudonymous artist XCOPY, Claire Silver, Tyler Hobbs and Hackatao.

Smart Contract Transactions

All NFT sales on the Sotheby’s Metaverse platform occur by way of smart contracts that allow digital art collectors to pay for their art and collectibles with the choice of Ether (ETH) or Polygon (MATIC). Sotheby’s also noted it would honor artist royalties through smart contracts on the secondary sales platform and will automatically pay artists according to the royalty rate they choose to select.

Sotheby’s Record-Breaking Digital Art Sales

The 279-year-old British-American clearing house made its first appearance on the NFT scene in April 2021, when it auctioned off the work of a pseudonymous digital artist known as Pak. Since then, the art house has conducted a number of record-breaking digital art sales. On June 11, 2021, Sotheby’s sold a rare CryptoPunk known as “Covid Alien” for a staggering $11.8 million. Just three months later on Sept. 10, Sotheby’s facilitated an auction of 101 Bored Ape NFTs that cleared a total of $24 million. In November 2021, Sotheby’s conducted the largest NFT charity auction in history, auctioning off 140 rare NFTs to raise funds for the nonprofit healthcare organization Sostento. Overall, Sotheby’s has demonstrated its commitment to staying at the forefront of the NFT market with its new on-chain secondary marketplace, featuring a curated selection of leading artists, smart contract transactions, and artist royalties.