Christie's to hold its first cryptocurrency auction


02/19/2021

A digital work Everydays: The First 5000 Days by artist Mike Winkelmann, known by his pseudonym Beeple, will be sold by Christie's auction house for Ethereum crypto-currency, Bloomberg reported, citing representatives of the house.



Tilo 2007
This is the first time Christie's has announced an auction using cryptocurrency. The auction house's premium will have to be paid in US dollars.

Beeple has been creating one work every day for 13 years. Beeple's works are sold using blockchain and non-exchangeable tokens, allowing the digital works' transactions and ownership shares to be tracked. 

The First 5000 Days work is a compilation of daily works of Beeple created since 1 May 2007.

Noah Davis, a spokesman for Christie's, told Bloomberg that the artist initially offered to auction Christie's naked caricatures of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, singer Michael Jackson and Toy Story cartoon character Buzz Lightyear, but such an offer "was not a complete fit for us". The auction for Beeple's collage work will take place online on 25 February and will run for seven days.

source: bloomberg.com