In 2023, the prestigious fine arts auction house Sotheby's reached a remarkable milestone, achieving close to $35 million in digital art sales. This impressive feat was announced by Michael Bouhanna, the company's vice president and head of digital art, who labeled 2023 as an exhilarating year for the digital art sector. A significant highlight of the year was Sotheby’s first live digital art auction, which drew 300 attendees and generated $12 million in sales. The auction house also set a record for the highest fee for a single digital artwork, selling the NFT "Ringers #879" by Dmitri Cherniak for $6.2 million.
Sotheby's has conducted over 25 auctions dedicated to digital art or incorporating it into contemporary art sales. Additionally, the company launched Sotheby’s Metaverse, an on-chain marketplace for the secondary trade of NFTs, marking a significant expansion into the digital realm.
Sotheby's journey in the NFT space began in April 2021 with the auction of a piece by the pseudonymous digital artist Pak. Since then, the auction house has been at the forefront of numerous record-breaking digital art sales, reflecting the growing interest and value in this new art form.
The resurgence of the NFT market, fueled by a Bitcoin bull run, has seen a significant uptick in the overall trade volume, which neared $1 billion in November 2023. This surge is also evident in the average value of NFT transactions, which increased by 114%, indicating a growing willingness among users to engage in higher-value trades.
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