NFT auction sales at Christie's are down 96% from last year
The auction house sold only 87 pieces of digital art totaling $5.9 million in 2022
NFT's auction sales at Christie's are down 96% this year, The Block reports. The auction house sold more than 100 NFTs worth more than $150 million in 2021 and only 87 items worth $5.9 million in 2022.
In 2021, the most expensive lots of Christie's became the works of American artist Michael Winkelman, known under the pseudonym of Beeple: NFT-paintings Everydays: The First 5000 Days was sold in March for $69.4 million, and an animated 3d-image of an astronaut called HUMAN ONE went at auction in October of the same year for $28.8 million.
The most expensive lot of 2022 was an NFT sculpture by Turkish-born media artist and filmmaker Refik Anadol Living Architecture: Casa Batlló, which sold in May for $1.38 million.
Despite the decline in digital art sales, Christie's continued to be active in web3 and NFT in 2022. The company created a venture capital fund, which on July 18 made its first investment in LayerZero, a startup specializing in blockchain interoperability.
In September, the auction house launched its own NFT marketplace called Christie's 3.0. The platform runs on the Ethereum network. Auctions on it are conducted entirely using blockchain technology, including post-sale transactions (commission payment and tax accrual).
