On Thursday, Sotheby’s, a prestigious auction house, officially announced that it will accept live bidding in Ethereum in real-time for two of Banky’s artwork that are up for auction.
The Selling of Banksy’s Artwork in Ethereum via Sotheby’s Auction
The Sotheby’s auction house announced it would be accepting live bidding in ETH for an upcoming art auction. This is the first time an auction house will accept crypto coins in real-time as an auction’s standard currency during the bidding of physical artwork. This is a massive step for crypto, which is slowly engulfing many other sectors. Some of the sectors that have encompassed crypto are education and banking,
The British-founded American luxury auction house will auction Banksy’s Love Is In The Air and Trolley Hunters. These paintings are worth around $4 to 6 million and $5 to 7 million, respectively, in US dollars. The auction will also feature art pieces from highly acclaimed artists Yoshitomo Nara and Mark Bradford.
The Trolley Hunters piece is described as “a typical witty, powerful and prophetic critique of society’s often irrational predilection for packaged and processed product.” Meanwhile, the 2006 Love Is In The Air piece is described as “one of Banksy’s immediately recognizable and most iconic images.”
This artwork will be part of ‘The Now Evening Auction,’ on the 18th of November. Sotheby’s will Livestream the event across its social media channels, including a dedicated Discord channel.
During the auction, the 277-year-old art house will announce the bidding prices in Ethereum. However, winning bidders have the option to pay in fiat currency or either BTC, ETH or USD Coin (USDC).
Crypto and Auction Houses
The Sotheby’s auction house first began interacting with crypto back in May. The auction house was accepting BTC and ETH payments for yet another Banksy auction in May 2021 dubbed the Contemporary Evening Auction. Sotheby’s also auctioned Bored Ape and CryptoPunks NFTs this year.
In October, Sotheby’s launched a Metaverse-themed NFT platform, the Sotheby’s Metaverse. The platform was a partnership with a number of curators such as Paris Hilton, PleasrDAO and Pranksy; the auction house has also provided financial support to various NFT projects. One of these includes giving the seed funding for Mojito’s NFT studio and blockchain tech platform.
Sotheby’s competitor, Christie’s, was actually the first auction house to cast its net in the crypto waters. Christie’s auction house accepted ETH payments in CryptoPunk’s May auction. This auction house is known for the auctioning of Beeple’s The First 5000 Days. The artwork sold for over $69 million.
Another auction house that is in the crypto space is the Phillips auction house. This auction house accepted BTC and ETH payments for an auction back in June. The auction was for Banksy’s Laugh Now Panel A.
The Ethereum digital coin is currently trading at $4,585.87 while Bitcoin trades at $63,306.66, a 2.32% drop within 24 hours.