“NATIVELY DIGITAL”: the first Sotheby’s NFT auction
The first NFT ever created with an auction base of $ 100 will also go on sale in June
“Natively Digital” is the first auction curated by Sotheby’s entirely dedicated to NFT works and artists. The sale will be available online, on the auction house’s website, and will take place between 3 and 10 June.
Bids for lots for sale start at a base of $ 100 and collectors have the option to pay in both FIAT money and cryptocurrency (Bitcoin or ETH).
“Natively Digital” – comments Michael Bouhanna, Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Specialist – “will be the greatest opportunity to educate our” traditional “public about the great artists and the diverse talents that make up this new space”. The sale is co-curated by Sotheby’s and London-based artist Robert Alice, pioneer of Crypto Art and in the NFT space.
The auction includes the NFT work created in 2014 by crypto artist Kevin McCoy. In addition to this important piece there is “A Single Number That Has 10,000,086 Digits,” by Japanese director Ryoji Ikeda; the first intelligent NFT (iNFT) entitled “To the Young Artists of Cyberspace”, produced by Robert Alice in collaboration with Althea AI and a digital version of Claude Monet’s “Sheaves” by Matt Kane, the impressionist masterpiece that in his physical version was sold by the same auction house in 2019 for $ 110.7 million.
One lot is also represented by the iconic “CryptoPunk 7523” by Larva Labs and by Don Diablo’s “Infinite Future” which combines the art of holograms with music and technology.
The proceeds from the sale will be partly donated to the non-profit organizations Sevens Foundation and Mint Fund; and so will Sillytuna, the current owner of “CryptoPunk # 7523”, who will donate a portion of the proceeds from the sale to the CryptoPunk community to support the fight against covid.
Sotheby’s has declared a particular attention to the environment: it will engage in a carbon offset study with Regen Network, a blockchain-based platform, to offset the minting and transaction costs of the sale.
