Sotheby’s joins the intangible token craze through a collaboration with digital artist Pak.
“We’ve been tracking the NFT space for a while,” said Charles Stewart, CEO of Sotheby, on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” announcing the auction house’s partnership with Pak on Tuesday. The upcoming sale will start next month.
“This is new to all of us,” added Stewart. “But there is a lot here that is really exciting that we think will last.”
Pak has been producing digital art for decades, but the identity of the artist is unknown.
“The artist prefers to remain anonymous, in part because the artist wants it to be about the art, which isn’t necessarily something new in the art world,” Stewart said. “But it’s one of the many new things about crypto art in particular that I think is different and possibly a little disruptive, especially when compared to the traditional art world.”
Founded in 1744 and known for selling multimillion-dollar paintings and other luxury items, Sotheby’s decision to embrace NFTs represents the latest milestone for the burgeoning digital art form. It comes after Christie’s sold an NFT collage for $ 69 million at auction last week, placing its creator, Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, among the top three of most valuable living artists
NFTs are blockchain-based assets unique in design, a scarcity that proponents say underpins their value. Ownership of a specific NFT is captured on a blockchain network, the distributed digital ledgers that support cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.
In addition to digital artwork, basketball highlights known as NBA Top Shots have become popular to buy as NFTs. Earlier this month, the rock band Kings of Leon released its latest album in the form of an NFT.
Some have dismissed NFTs as a fad whose values will decline over time. Skeptics also note that the rise of NFTs coincided with a boom in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, notorious for its volatility, and ether, running on the Ethereum blockchain network.
The buyer of Winkelmann’s $ 69 million NFT was pseudonymous crypto investor Metakovan.
Winkelmann has said he sees a range of uses for the digital infrastructure that underpins NFTs. “I really think this is a technology that has just as many uses,” he told CNBC on Friday, calling it “a clean slate even beyond digital art.” He added, “Anytime you want to prove ownership, I think there’s a use case.”
But even for NFT-based digital art, according to Sotheby’s Stewart, it is still “very early, it goes without saying”.
For its Pak partnership, New York-based Sotheby’s will sell both unique digital artworks and what are called ‘open editions’ in the NFT world, where many people can buy tokens for the same work, ” explains. Stewart.
NFTs bring new interest and a “new aesthetic” to art, Stewart said, arguing that there is potential “to bypass many of the traditional gatekeepers and vetting processes of the physical art world.” He added, “That’s something that’s very exciting, and as it develops, we’re really curious where that will take us all.”
Benoit Pagotto – a co-founder of RTFKT, who helped create a collection of recently sold NFT-based digital sneakers – told CNBC that he expects it will take some time for some people to fully understand the enthusiasm surrounding crypto collectibles. .
“Educating and retraining people is something we have to do,” Pagotto said on “Squawk Alley on Tuesday.” But at the same time we know that people will never understand [NFTs], just like today, there are still those who don’t understand why esports is so strong and such a cultural movement. With these people, we will not spend too much time explaining. “
– CNBC’s Jessica Bursztynsky contributed to this report.