The 279-year-old auction house, Sotheby’s, continues its foray into the Web3 space by launching a secondary NFT marketplace on its Sotheby’s Metaverse platform.
The marketplace features a rotating selection of leading artists chosen by Sotheby’s specialists. It is facilitated entirely through automated smart contracts that allow collectors to pay for their purchases in Ether or Polygon.
The platform will also honor artist royalties through smart contracts on the secondary sales platform, with fees from any secondary sales automatically sent to the artist’s wallet.
The auction house acknowledged that its decision comes amid a broader discussion about resale royalties concerning NFTs, typically 5% to 10% of the sale price.
Sotheby’s Metaverse is powered by Mojito, an NFT tech and commerce suite developed by Serotonin, a Web3 marketing firm and venture studio. The platform supports NFT artwork minted on Ethereum and Polygon, which Sotheby’s described as the “networks of choice for NFT creators and collectors”.
Michael Bouhanna, Vice President and Head of NFTs and Digital Art at Sotheby’s, called the measure an “important step forward” for the auction house as it continues to expand in the Web3 arena.
Sotheby’s has previously held multiple record-breaking NFT sales, including an $11.8 million sale of a rare CryptoPunk known as “Covid Alien” and a $24 million auction of 101 Bored Ape NFTs.
In November 2021, the auction house hosted the most fabulous NFT charity auction in memory, selling 140 extremely rare NFTs to generate money for the charitable healthcare group Sostento.
Sotheby’s Metaverse platform expands the auction house’s reach in the NFT space, allowing collectors to engage in peer-to-peer secondary sales of curated artwork while honoring the artists’ royalties.
