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Luxury auction house Sotheby’s has announced the creation of a new online marketplace that allows digital art collectors to purchase secondary NFTs.
While many of the pre-existing NFT marketplaces already run peer-to-peer digital art sales, the auction house is trying to stand out by offering a “constantly updated selection of top artists curated by Sotheby’s experts”.
The next evolution of #Sotheby’sMetaverse is here! The most trusted and dynamic destination to collect, buy and sell remarkable digital works.
Explore: https://t.co/hZvYIkO3xx pic.twitter.com/dCkaCKlXVm
— Sotheby’s Metaverse (@Sothebysverse) May 1, 2023
All NFT sales on the Sotheby’s Metaverse platform take place through smart contracts that allow digital art collectors to pay for their art and collectibles by choosing between Ethereum (ETH) or Landfill (MATIC).
Sotheby’s also noted that it will pay royalties to artists through smart contracts on the secondary sales platform and will automatically pay artists according to their chosen royalty rate.
According to a May 1st announcement by Sotheby’s on Twitter, the platform will feature the work of 13 well-known digital artists, including artist under the pseudonym XCOPY, Claire Silver, Tyler Hobbs and Hakatao.
The 279-year-old British-American clearing house first appeared on the NFT scene in April 2021 when it auctioned a work by a digital artist under a pseudonym known as Pak. Since then, the art house has held a string of record-breaking digital art sales.
Related: Snow Crash Manuscript Introducing ‘Metaverse’ Term To Be Auctioned By Sotheby’s
On June 11, 2021, Sotheby’s sold the rare CryptoPunk known as “Covid Alien” for a staggering $11.8 million.
Moments ago in our #London saleroom, an extremely rare “Alien” CryptoPunk #7523 from the collection of @sillytuna sold for $11.8M as part of our #NativelyDigital NFT auction – setting a new world auction record for a single CryptoPunk. pic.twitter.com/PDVUSttI3o
— Sotheby’s (@Sotheby’s) June 10, 2021
Just three months later, on September 10, Sotheby’s launched the 101 Bored Ape NFT, which raised a total of $24 million.
In November 2021, Sotheby’s held the largest NFT charity auction in history, auctioning off 140 rare NFTs to raise funds for the non-profit healthcare organization Sostento.