Digital art sold close to $35 million at Sotheby’s, a 279-year-old British-American auction house. Sotheby’s Vice President and Head of Digital Art, Michael Bouhanna, called 2023 one of digital art’s most interesting years.
Bouhanna detailed Sotheby’s digital art successes on X (previously Twitter) on December 23. The auction house held its first live digital art auction, drawing 300 participants and selling $12 million. The milestone event showed the rise of digital art at auctions.
2023 at Sothebys will remain one of the most exciting years for Digital Art!
— Michael Bouhanna (@michaelbouhanna) December 23, 2023
🚨 What We Achieved 🚨
Close to $35 million in sales.
Launch of a fully on-chain secondary marketplace that honors creators' royalties.
Our very first dedicated live auction with more than 300… pic.twitter.com/rabrxntz9Z
The sale of digital artist Dmitri Cherniak’s non-fungible token (NFT) “Ringers #879,” was one of Sotheby’s biggest 2023 achievements. The highest price ever paid for digital artwork was $6.2 million for this piece. The sale showed that digital art is becoming more valuable in the art market.
Sotheby’s held around 25 digital art auctions or included it in contemporary art sales this year. The auction house launched Sotheby’s Metaverse, an on-chain marketplace for decentralized finance (DeFi). This platform supports NFT secondary trading, expanding the digital asset ecosystem.
Sotheby’s pledges to encourage creators and improve their digital art market strategies in the following year. Sotheby’s is deliberately positioning itself to lead digital art’s evolution, however details are still needed.
In April 2021, Sotheby’s auctioned Pak’s anonymized digital art. Since then, the auction house has smashed records and promoted digital art in traditional art markets.
NFT has enjoyed a comeback, especially during the Bitcoin bull run. Digital asset euphoria returned in November 2023 as NFT trade volume exceeded $1 billion. The month’s average NFT transaction value rose 114%, demonstrating a greater readiness to trade higher-priced NFTs. Sotheby’s role in shaping digital art and NFTs in traditional art markets remains crucial as it navigates this evolving world.
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