NFT's popularity gradually retreats, and the "encryption" of the top auction house

Author: Gyro Finance

"The friends of cryptocurrencies have gone. As soon as the music stops, they immediately fled." During the Paris Paris Paris Basel Art Exhibition in October, art consultant Wendy Goldsmith said in the solemn environment of the Grand Palace in Paris. Essence But at present, as Bitcoin continues to break through the new high, Ethereum is also close to the peak of 2021. People who have presented to cryptocurrencies before the art industry are also eager to try.

Early signs show that pioneering art industry changers have gained real hot spots. A few weeks after US President Donald Trump's re -election, cryptocurrencies rose rapidly, and Trump showed his determination to strongly support decentralized digital assets. And before, Sun Yuchen, the founder of the encrypted platform TRON, bought Maurizio Cattelan's "Comedian" (2019) at the Sotheby's Auction of New York at the Sotheby's Auction in New York. The sky-high auction of bananas stuck to the wall made it into the headlines of most media, and he used cryptocurrency to pay for the goods.

Against this backdrop, Sotheby's Auction will accept payments from ETH or BTC at its first auction in Saudi Arabia next month, the first time that a traditional auction house supports cryptocurrency payments at the entire live auction of the physical auction. Essence Sotheby's said the change could add an additional group of buyers to auction houses in areas where digital art and cryptocurrency activity are very active. The auction consists of 119 lots, including modern and contemporary art from the West and Saudi Arabia, luxury goods and jerseys worn by football player Cristiano Ronaldo, and generations created by leading practitioner Refik Anador "AI Data Painting". His huge work, "Machine Illusion - Space | Chapter 2: Mars" (2021) uses data from space telescopes to create a surreal organic landscape, with an estimated price of between $800,000 and $1.2 million.

In fact, before the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, due to the conflict of styles, the art market was difficult to attract people in the technology industry. The rise of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has actually brought some new cryptocurrency millionaires and billionaires. NF is a unique digital asset that connects art with blockchain and can be used to make geometric abstract paintings and cartoons.

In 2021, Christie’s and Sotheby’s began accepting buying some physical art in cryptocurrency, after Christie’s auctioned Beeple’s Everydays: the First 5000 Days, an NFT that splices together 5,000 digital images, many of which All are ironic, even including the giant naked Trump sitting on the Capitol. Its final buyer is Vignesh Sundaresan, aka Metakovan, the founder of crypto investment fund Metapurse, who bought the artwork for a staggering $69 million.

Since then, eligible physical works have begun to tilt towards the science and technology taste, including a bright yellow painting created by Keith Haring in 1984, depicting a group of people who were fascinated by the computer. Sold for £4.3 million, but the auction house is reluctant to confirm whether it has accepted the offer to pay in cryptocurrency. The conditions of Christie's acceptance of other currencies are that the seller is willing to accept cryptocurrencies, and the bidding is still carried out with local legal currencies, as is the cost of auction houses; Sotheby's itself does not hold cryptocurrencies. Now every well-known auction house has its own NFT and digital art platforms, namely Sotheby's Metaverse and Christie's 3.0, and both sellers and buyers can use cryptocurrencies.

For the art market, practitioners want to use NFT and its associated alternative currencies to broaden the channels for new buyers to enter the art field that is usually more expensive. Masayoshi Son personally completed the journey—spending over $6.2 million in the process. In early 2021, he purchased screensaver “cube” NFT works by digital artist Murat Pak, which are sold through Sotheby’s on the dedicated Nifty Gateway platform for $1,500 each.

A few months later, according to Masayoshi Son's social media, he bought Untitled (Kimpson) (2001), a work created by the hot KAWS The painting contains cartoon characters of the artist, eyes are drawn in an X-shaped shape and sealed in a blister packaging. Just five months later, Masayoshi Son entered the heavyweight modern art field, buying Alberto Giacometti's "Nose" sculpture for $78 million. This is a 1965 sculpture that depicts a long nose head locked in a cage.

But despite this, not everyone in the art market is greeted with the impact of cryptocurrencies with a bright light. Goldsmith evaluated the atmosphere during the Paris Expo, believing that the market atmosphere is stable and far-sighted, undoubtedly free from the turmoil caused by cryptocurrency speculators. The reason is that encryption is mainly because the image of young buyers is also incompatible with the current situation of the lack of diversity in the art auction market itself. There is also a long-standing objective fact that new entrants are often viewed suspiciously, after all, the art market is largely conservative and closed.

In this difficult market, doubts and concerns about users are just superficial reasons, and concerns about their uses are the core issue. The attractiveness of artwork -in a secret market that can convert unstable book profits into transferable tangible assets -it is enough to greatly increase its attractiveness to money launders, and cryptocurrency NFT is more likely to be more likely to be more likely to Become a new playground for money laundering.

In China, cryptocurrencies are prohibited. "The reason is based on many anti -money laundering cases." Angell Xi, a partner of the Chinese law firm, wrote in the 2024 Basel Art Exhibition and UBS Art Market Report. In the EU, the latest anti-money laundering and terrorist financing rules have tightened all businesses that provide services related to crypto assets, including banning anonymous payments.

The auction house's compliance team is ready and has a relatively cautious attitude towards cryptocurrencies. In addition to the special NFT platform, only a few auction works meet the conditions until Sotes Fubi in Saudi Arabia on February 8th, and Christie's said that its NFT sales have so far reached 150 million US dollars, including Beeple and its cost.

As the market has developed to this day, NFT has been cold and the market has lost most of its popularity, but as the market improves, it will also usher in a turning point in the future. According to the "Global Art Market Outlook" released by Arttactic this week, 12% of experts are optimistic about NFT's performance this year. Essence

Meanwhile, Christie's said its NFT buyer average age is 42, while all auctions are 54 years old. This is in line with Christie's strategy to position the business as the younger generation. It is also a key strategy that Christie's new CEO Bonnie Brennan emphasized last week. She said that her plan is to "protect cultural heritage and pay attention to innovation. ——Attract new audiences, regions and technologies”.

In fact, the art market has always been obviously sluggish in the past two years, and the introduction of fresh blood is urgently needed. According to Arttactic's data, the total auction volume of Sotheby's, Christie's and Philips auction houses fell 26%in 2024, and 19%in 2023.

Against this background, perhaps any point of catchable traffic is beneficial, so as the cryptocurrency stage lights up again, the auction house that is fighting for the wrong side can only be prepared to join this drama.