Sotheby’s Launches On-Chain NFT Marketplace

by James · May 2, 2023

Sotheby’s, the renowned auction house, has taken its deep dive into the Web3 world a step further by launching a portal on its Sotheby’s Metaverse platform where peer-to-peer secondary sales of NFT artworks are conducted entirely on-chain.

The secondary sale on Sotheby’s Metaverse is powered entirely by smart contracts and allows collectors to pay with Ethereum or Polygon’s native token MATIC using their self-powered digital wallets.

Sotheby’s Metaverse, which launched in October 2021, supports NFT artwork minted on Ethereum and the Polygon scaling network, which the auction house described as “the network of choice for NFT creators and collectors” in a statement.

In addition, Sotheby’s Metaverse differs from other peer-to-peer NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea and Blur, as it offers a rotating, curated selection of leading artists hand-picked by specialists at Sotheby’s. The lineup of artists for the secondary marketplace will change every few months, and collectors can list and bid on NFTs from 13 creators that Sotheby’s has deemed leaders in the digital art world. The first wave of artists included Claire Silver, Sam Spratt, Tyler Hobbs and the pseudonymous XCOPY.

Also, Sotheby’s Metaverse is powered by Mojito, an NFT technology and trading suite developed by Serotonin, a Web3 marketing firm and venture studio. The auction house 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 new offering as an “important step forward” for the auction house, which was established in 1744, as it continues to evolve within the Web3 area.

Furthermore, the portal dedicated to secondary sales on Sotheby’s Metaverse is also designed to respect secondary royalty fees specified by artists.

Creator royalties are fees taken from any secondary sales, usually 5% to 10% of the sale price, which are automatically sent to the artist’s wallet. Sotheby’s acknowledged that its decision comes amid a wider discussion about resale taxes in relation to NFTs.

NFTs are unique digital tokens that represent the ownership of an object, often digital art. Blockchain transactions are recorded in public ledgers, which naturally lend themselves to provenance, making NFTs valuable in tracing their ownership history.

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