Sotheby’s has launched a secondary marketplace for NFTs, allowing artists to sell digital works directly to collectors
NFTs
The platform, which is part of the auction house’s ongoing effort to corner the blue-chip NFT market, starts with works from 13 high-profile artists.
Sotheby’s has added a secondary marketplace to its Web3-focused venture Sotheby’s Metaverse.
The auction house has been aggressively courting the NFT space since early 2021, positioning itself as the best place to sell and collect blue-chip digital work. Sotheby’s has hosted landmark NFT sales of solo artists, such as Pak; curated group shows, most recently a survey of contemporary glitch art; and whipped collections, including the upcoming sale of NFTs by bankrupt hedge fund Three Arrows Capital.
And it works. To date, Sotheby’s has generated north of $100 million in NFT sales.
The latest move from is a play to compete with other secondary marketplaces and gain additional Web3 credit with collectors and artists alike. The sales system is completely on-chain, allowing users to buy instantly in Ethereum or Polygon Matic with infrastructure powered by Mojito, a Web3 platform that Sotheby’s supported in 2021.
The platform is artist-centric. Every couple of months, Sotheby’s will rotate in a collection of artists, whose background, technique and significance will be lavishly explained in typical auction house fashion. Users will have access to the entire portfolio of works created by an artist on other NFT marketplaces. It is a kind of aggregator, which allows holders of works by the selected artists to add their NFTs to the platform without consulting Sotheby’s. It’s peer-to-peer, but with Sotheby’s setting the conversational topics. The auction house will charge a seller’s fee of 2.5 percent.
Sarah Zucker, Madame de Gateau (2021). Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s.
The Sotheby’s market is also known for its attitude towards royalties. As the number of NFT marketplaces increased and the crypto bear market continued to grind on, a race to the bottom ensued with the likes of Magic Eden and LooksRare moving to royalty-free models. Some removed them entirely. Guaranteed artist royalties were the big (false) promise of NFTs and Sotheby’s promise to automatically pay artists according to their on-chain royalty rate will make it an attractive platform for artists.
Sotheby’s has launched its secondary marketplace with 13 of the most high-profile creators in the digital art space. This includes AI art stars Claire Silver, Sofia Crespo and Refik Anadol, generative artists Tyler Hobbs and Pindar van Arman, and leading digital creators Hackatao, IX Shells and XCOPY.
“A peer-to-peer marketplace across the chain is an important step forward in our evolution in the digital art and collectibles space,” said Michael Bouhanna, Sotheby’s Head of NFTs in a statement. “To commemorate this event by opening our secondary market to a carefully selected group of artists, many of whom have been at the forefront of the movement and brought digital art to worldwide attention, further underscores Sotheby’s commitment to the NFT community.”
The next step comes in June with Sotheby’s Metaverse creating a digital gallery of works on the secondary market with digital art collector Cozomo De’ Medici.
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