Key Takeaways
- Christie’s has revealed that it made practically $150 million in income from NFT gross sales this 12 months.
- The public sale home’s complete world gross sales this 12 months had been sturdy at $7.1 billion.
- Christie’s foray into the world of NFTs doubtless contributed to the wave of enthusiasm round NFTs in 2021.
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World-famous public sale home Christie’s has made practically $150 million in income this 12 months from NFTs alone.
A Novel Moneymaker
Christie’s, the British public sale home based in 1766, announced at the moment that it had offered near $150 million value of NFTs in 2021 “after launching this new market first on the worldwide public sale stage.”
This represents a reasonably small portion of Christie’s complete gross sales this 12 months, which it projects to be $7.1 billion globally; complete gross sales for the public sale home had been roughly 54% greater than they had been final 12 months. These are Christie’s highest numbers within the final 5 years.
Conventional artwork nonetheless dominated Christie’s gross sales this 12 months: two of probably the most valuable works offered at public sale in 2021 had been a Picasso at $103.4 million and a Basquiat for $93.1 million. Nonetheless, the identical Could night that the Basquiat offered, 9 CryptoPunks—arguably probably the most well-known NFT assortment on the planet—sold at public sale for a complete of $16.9 million.
Beeple was simply probably the most priceless NFT artist represented within the public sale home’s catalog this 12 months. In March, he sold his “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days” NFT at Christie’s for $69.34 million. This sale arguably kicked off the NFT craze that characterised this 12 months.
In November, Christie’s sold another one in all Beeple’s works, known as “HUMAN ONE,” a 7-foot-tall astronaut sculpture that was paired with an NFT, for slightly below $29 million. That very same month, Christie’s and OpenSea partnered to promote an entire assortment of NFTs.
Complete gross sales quantity for the whole NFT market has been estimated at $12 billion in 2021, which could make the $150 million executed at Christie’s appear reasonably small as compared. Nonetheless, it appears doubtless that Christie’s entrenched place within the conventional artwork world helped to raise NFT artwork to new degree of respectability.
Disclosure: On the time of writing, the creator of this piece owned ETH and several other different cryptocurrencies.
