Christie’s NFT auction conducted with OpenSea does not impress – ARTnews.com

As some auction houses and galleries try to launch their own NFT platforms, Christie’s is experimenting with an alternative route. The auction closed last night on a Christie’s NFT auction that ran entirely on OpenSea, one of the major NFT platforms, as opposed to Christie’s website. By tapping into the existing technical infrastructure that OpenSea has already built, Noah Davis, Christie’s digital sales manager, hopes to launch the auction house in the future.

“I don’t see any way for us to do this outside of blockchain and with manual processes, like we used to do,” Davis said in a pre-sale interview.

The auction took place from December 4 to 7. Before bidding, the pieces offered were exhibited at Art Basel Miami Beach as part of an experience called “The Gateway”. Christie’s worked with the team of nft now, an NFT news site, on curation, another move aimed at winning over the premier auction house within the rapidly evolving NFT scene.

“We are marketing NFTs to the crypto-native crowd going forward,” said Davis, adding, “This is the first time that I can say that everything we’ve done is very inside rather than from the outside.”

“The Gateway” featured works by NFT artists like Mad Dog Jones, who became the most beloved living Canadian artist after his work REPLICATOR (2021) sold to Phillips for $ 4.1 million earlier this year. Also on display was a collection of CyberKongz, an NFT profile photo of pixelated gorillas. Sales from the CyberKongz collection will be donated to Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which Davis described as “the last stronghold of the IRL gorillas”. NFTs by DJs like 3Lau, who also performed at the two-day “Gateway” event, were offered. A total of 25 NFTs were put up for sale.

Since the sale was hosted by OpenSea, the NFTs did not receive any quotes. Rather, in the traditional manner of NFT auctions, Davis recommends that the starting bids be the same low prices, “to keep values ​​at a really attractive level and invite the greatest possible depth of auction.”

Christie’s declined to release details of floor prices or whether the auction house had followed Davis’ advice. However, an examination of the history of the calls for tenders reveals that the floor prices of the works varied considerably. A work by Mad Dog Jones had a starting value of 1.5 ETH ($ 6,500), and a coin from CryptoKongz had a starting value of 4.5 ETH ($ 19,000). Many works had no floor prices at all.

In total, the sale brought in 862.5 ETH ($ 3.6 million). The best lot was CyberKong # 201 (2021), which sold for 185 ETH ($ 793,400). Other best-selling items included FRIENDS 00001 (2021), an animated cloud wearing suspenders with AR abilities by FriendsWithYou, which sold for 96.9 ETH ($ 415,600) and 3LAU’s Waveform, a two-minute song that sold for 77 ETH ($ 330,200).

The results were poor compared to previous NFT sales at Christie’s. A collection of six NFT Art Blocks grossed $ 7.5 million at a Christie’s contemporary art sale in September. That same month, 14 NFTs of profile photos from the CryptoPunk, Bored Ape Yacht Club, and MeeBits collections grossed $ 12.3 million.

Is the NFT market just slowing down, no longer dazzling audiences with eyebrow-raising results, or Christie’s cachet of yesteryear, diluted by the use of OpenSea, it turns out? unattractive to NFT buyers? There could be a myriad of reasons the sale didn’t look too impressive in the end. The question now is whether Christie’s will continue to pursue similar initiatives. Before the sale, Davis seemed excited about the possibility of doing so, saying, “It’s a great leap of faith, and if it works – and I think it will work – then you can expect it to be so.” that we will proceed. cheeky.”