Christie’s goes full chain with new Ethereum NFT Marketplace

Christie’s has already made a big splash in the NFT space, notably auctioning Beeple’s “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days” artwork for $69.3 million in March 2021. The major auction house is now fully embracing Web3’s decentralized ethos by launching a new marketplace where auctions take place on the public Ethereum blockchain.

Launched today, the Christie’s 3.0 marketplace is built so that transactions are recorded in their entirety on the Ethereum blockchain. The 256-year-old auction house says it will also offer tools for compliance and tax purposes.

The new Christie’s platform was created in collaboration with Manifolda start-up with a focus on smart contracts, or the code that powers NFTs and other decentralized apps. Christie’s has also partnered with blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis and metaverse platform Spatial to enable additional functionality for the marketplace.

While some previous Christie’s NFT auctions have grabbed headlines, the actual transactions were usually not performed on-chain – a process that provides transparency about the wallets involved and the payment flow. Christie’s 3.0 reshapes this approach with on-chain transactions that more closely resemble those of marketplaces such as OpenSea and Rarible.

Nicole Sales Giles, director of digital art sales at Christie’s, commented in a press release that the new marketplace would “offer the public the opportunity to collect exceptional NFTs the way they are meant to be transacted, on-chain.”

However, Christie’s will continue its emphasis on curation rather than allowing anyone to list their artwork or collectibles. For the launch of the marketplace, Christie’s is offering only one exclusive project: a collection of nine NFTs from Diana Sinclairan interdisciplinary artist.

Sotheby’s, Christie’s main rival in the high-end auction space, is also deeply rooted in the NFT world: the auction house launched its Sotheby’s Metaverse NFT Marketplace October last year and has hosted its own high-profile real-world NFT auctionsalso.