Christies Closes NFT Department Amid Market Slowdown

The move also comes with layoffs, including its vice president of digital art, though Christie’s will still sell NFTs. The decision was made after a period of high-profile involvement in Web3, including Beeple’s $69.3 million sale in 2021 and the launch of a dedicated NFT platform in 2022. Analysts suggest the restructuring is a result of declining art sales and the challenges of scaling NFT secondary markets. At the same time, NFT marketplace OpenSea announced a $1 million reserve to acquire “culturally relevant” NFTs, starting with CryptoPunk #5273. The reserve was created to highlight NFTs that left a lasting impact on the digital art world.

Christies Closes NFT Division

Christie’s, the 258-year-old British auction house, is reportedly closing its dedicated non-fungible token (NFT) department, consolidating it under its broader 20th and 21st-century art division. The firm will continue to sell digital artworks, including NFTs, but the restructuring is certainly a reflection of shifting market conditions.

According to a report from Now Media, the move comes alongside layoffs, including the departure of Christie’s vice president of digital art, though at least one digital art specialist will stay on staff.

The decision is a big moment for Christie’s, which played an important role in bringing NFTs into mainstream recognition. The auction house famously sold Mike “Beeple” Winkelmann’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days for $69.3 million in March of 2021. This sale defined the NFT boom. Christie’s later expanded its Web3 presence by launching a dedicated NFT auction platform in September of 2022 and even unveiled a crypto-only real estate team in 2023. However, the latest restructuring suggests the enthusiasm for these initiatives cooled due to industry pressures.

Art market data supports the rationale for Christie’s move. The Art Basel & UBS Art Market Report 2025 revealed that global art sales dropped 12% in 2024 to $57 billion, while combined public and private auction house sales fell 20% to $23 billion. 

Source: (The Art Basel & UBS Art Market Report 2025)

Digital art adviser and collector Fanny Lakoubay suggested that auction houses cannot justify separate departments when revenues trail behind other categories, despite occasional headline-making NFT sales. She also said that the secondary sales model has not yet scaled effectively for digital art, and argued it may be more fruitful to invest in primary markets and help traditional collectors discover emerging digital artists.

Not everyone sees the consolidation as a setback for NFTs. An NFT collector posting under the handle Benji described Christie’s decision as potentially its “Kodak moment,” and argued that the auction house’s business model of charging 25-30% commissions on digital assets requiring no authentication, storage, or shipping was unsustainable in the face of competitors offering zero-commission platforms. He suggested that Christie’s departure could ultimately benefit the ecosystem by reducing value extraction and allowing more proceeds to flow directly to artists and collectors.

The NFT market itself has been volatile, In fact, last year was its weakest for trading volume and sales since 2020. 

OpenSea Unveils $1M NFT Reserve

Meanwhile, NFT marketplace OpenSea announced the creation of a $1 million reserve dedicated to acquiring what it calls “culturally relevant” non-fungible tokens. The initiative was launched with the purchase of CryptoPunk #5273, one of the highly regarded profile picture NFTs from Ethereum’s first collection of its kind. 

According to OpenSea’s chief marketing officer Adam Hollander, the reserve was created to highlight NFTs that left a lasting impact on the digital art world, whether through creative influence, social significance, or technological innovation. The selection process for future acquisitions will be handled by a team of OpenSea employees and external digital art advisers. 

OpenSea Flagship Collection announcement

On-chain data shows CryptoPunk #5273 was purchased on Aug. 25 for 65 Ether, worth roughly $283,000 at the time, and later transferred to another wallet. The CryptoPunks collection was created in 2017 by Larva Labs, and currently holds a market cap of around $2.1 billion.

While the idea of strategic reserves is common with fungible tokens like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, OpenSea’s is a rare step into NFT reserves, which carry bigger risks due to lower liquidity and difficulties in selling during market downturns. Hollander said that this is not a one-off campaign but rather a “living collection” that will grow over time as the NFT sector evolves.

Weekly NFT volumes (Source: CryptoSlam)

The announcement comes at a time of mixed fortunes for NFTs. Data from CryptoSlam shows sales rebounded to between $115 million and $170 million in July and August, but activity slowed in early September, with weekly sales slipping to $92 million. Meanwhile, several companies, including Bybit, Kraken, and GameStop, have shut down their NFT marketplaces due to declining trading volumes.