Sotheby’s Launches On-Chain NFT Marketplace for Secondary Art Sales
Renowned auction house Sotheby’s took its years-long embrace of Web3 a step further on Monday, launching a portal on its Sotheby’s Metaverse platform where secondary NFT the sale of works of art takes place peer-to-peer and completely in the chain.
The addition to Sotheby’s Metaverse platform, which basically went live in October 2021, support for NFT artworks has impressed on Ethereum and scaling networks Polygonwhich Sotheby’s described as the “network of choice for NFT creators and collectors” in a statement.
The secondary sales at Sotheby’s Metaverse are facilitated entirely through automated means smart contractssaid the auction house, allowing collectors to pay for art and collectibles in Ethereum (ETH) or MATIC, the token native to Polygon, using their own hosting digital wallets.
While OpenSea and Blur are notable examples of large-scale, peer-to-peer NFT marketplaces already in existence today, Sotheby’s venue is distinct in its offerings, which will consist of a “rotating, curated selection of leading artists” hand-picked by specialists at Sotheby’s, it said.
Sotheby’s said the lineup of artists for the secondary marketplace will change every few months. And for the first wave of artists, collectors can list and bid on NFTs from 13 creators the auction house has deemed leaders in the digital art world, including Claire Silver, Sam Spratt, Tyler Hobbs and the pseudonymous XCOPY.
Sotheby’s Metaverse is powered by Mojito, an NFT technology and trading suite developed by Serotonin, a Web3 marketing firm and venture studio. Sotheby’s said it became an early investor in Mojito in 2021.
Sotheby’s vice president and head of NFTs and digital art Michael Bouhanna described the move in a release as a “significant step forward” for the auction house — established in 1744 — as it continues to evolve within the Web3 space.
The venue dedicated to secondary sales is also designed in a way that respects secondary royalty fees specified by artists. A creator royalty is a fee taken from any secondary sales, usually 5% to 10% of the sale price, which is automatically sent to the artist’s wallet. Sotheby’s acknowledged that the decision comes amid a broader discussion about resale taxes in relation to NFTs.
NFTs are unique digital tokens that represent the ownership of an object, often digital art. And when it comes to tracking their ownership history, the idea of blockchain transactions being recorded in public ledgers naturally engenders.
For example Sotheby’s recently unveiled a collection of NFTs consisting of artwork seized from the bankrupt hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. Entitled “Grails”, the collection not only features work from notable artists and valuable projects, but the previous ownership of the NFTs featured also makes them part of Web3 history.
