Christie’s to launch an NFT marketplace- Decoding details

Famed British auction house Christie’s has announced the launch of its dedicated NFT marketplace.

Christie’s yesterday (27 September)  announced on Twitter that it is going to launch a dedicated NFT marketplace on Ethereum, built in collaboration with leading Web 3.0 groups, the NFT smart contract development Manifold, blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis and metaverse development firm Spatial.

Called Christie’s 3.0, the venture aims to facilitate the sale of NFTs completely on the blockchain.

NFTs are not new to British auction giant

Beginning 28 September, the inaugural sale puts nine new NFTs by the New York-based digital artist, Diana Sinclair, at the forefront. The sale ends on 11 October.  

Founded in the 18th century, Christie’s is one of the most prominent auction houses in the world. Going by sales value, it is only the second leading auction house next to Sotheby’s. In 2021, the sales value of Christie’s and Sotheby’s were worth $7.1 billion and $7.3 billion respectively.

In September last year, Sotheby’s auctioned a collection of 101 Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs for over $24.4 million.

Source: Statista

NFTs and Web 3.0 are not new market segments for Christie’s though.

In October 2020, Christie’s auctioned London-based artist Ben Gentilli’s NFT artwork named ‘Block 21’ for over $130,000. The artwork represented Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous person who founded Bitcoin.

In March 2021, it auctioned American artist Mike “Beeple” Winkelmann’s ‘Everydays: The First 5000 Days,’ Christie’s first-ever purely digital artwork on the blockchain, for $69.3 million.

It is the second most expensive NFT ever sold so far. Pak’s ‘The Merge’ remains the most expensive NFT so far, sold for $91.8 million on the Nifty Gateway.

In July this year, Christie’s launched a venture fund to invest in Web 3.0 and blockchain innovations, enabling a “seamless consumption of art,” called Christie’s Ventures, the VC’s first investment was into LayerZero Labs, a blockchain company that builds solutions for omnichain dApps.

A hopeful future for NFTs

A June 2022 report published by Verified Market Research (VMR) predicts that NFTs are going to occupy a significant position in the market, with their value swelling to $231 billion by 2030.

The report valued the NFT market in 2021 to be $11.3 billion. North America is most likely to emerge as the dominant market in the segment.

An August 2022 study by the UK-based market research firm Juniper Research has analyzed the trajectory of the non-fungible token (NFT) market over the next five years, predicting that the number of global NFT transactions will reach around 40 million by 2027.

Titled ‘NFTs- Seizing the Metaverse Opportunity,’ the report also adds that among all the NFT segments, the metaverse-linked NFTs will grow the fastest over the next five years; these NFTs will witness an increase in transactions from 600,000 in 2022 to 9.8 million by 2027.

Source: Juniper Research

Moreover, Dublin-based market research firm Research and Markets predicted in April 2022 that the NFT market is poised to grow by $147.24 billion during 2022-2026, progressing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 35.27% during the forecast period.

On the other hand, according to a study by MarketsandMarkets, the global NFT market is expected to grow from $3 billion in 2022 to $13.6 billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 35.0% from 2022 to 2027.