Christie’s sold $150 million in NFTs.

Christie’s has reported that its NFT sales generated approximately $150 million in revenue this year. This year, the auction house’s total global sales were $7.1 billion. Christie’s entry into the field of NFTs is likely to have contributed to the surge of excitement around NFTs in 2021.

Christie‘s, a British auction company founded in 1766, stated today that it sold about $150 million in NFTs in 2021 “after launching this new market first on the global auction stage.”

This constitutes a relatively modest fraction of the auction house overall sales this year, which are expected to reach $7.1 billion globally; total sales for the auction house were around 54% more than previous year. Christie’s statistics are the highest in the last five years.

Traditional art remained dominated the company sales this year, with a Picasso fetching $103.4 million and a Basquiat fetching $93.1 million as the most valued pieces sold at auction in 2021. However, on the same May evening that the Basquiat was sold, nine CryptoPunks—arguably the world’s most renowned NFT collection—sold at auction for a total of $16.9 million.

The auction house sold one of Beeple’s creations, “HUMAN ONE,” a 7-foot-tall astronaut sculpture combined with an NFT, for little under $29 million in November. Christie’s and OpenSea collaborated the same month to sell an entire collection of NFTs. This year, Beeple was by far the most valued NFT artist included in the auction house’s catalog.

The total sales volume for the whole NFT sector is expected to exceed $12 billion in 2021, making Christie’s $150 million appear little in contrast. However, Christie’s established position in the conventional art world appears to have aided in elevating NFT work to a new level of acceptability.

Patrick

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