16.02.2025

Christie’s auction house sells digital artwork on blockchain for the first time

Unique NFT tokens are confidently conquering the world – and here is another proof of this. For the first time in its 250-year history, renowned auction house Christie’s will auction a fully digital artwork.

From February 25 to March 11, Christie’s will be selling works from the cycle «THE FIRST 5000 DAYS» by the artist under the nickname Beeple. It is a collective work that illuminates the path of an artist who has created many creations in this area over the past thirteen years. This event is proof of the endlessness of the options for using blockchain technology in general and Ethereum in particular.

By tradition, let’s start with an explanation. The art industry has experienced the benefits of blockchain relatively recently. In general, it all comes down to two features of the technology – its transparency and reliability. The first component allows any owner of a certain job to confirm their connection with it, because a unique NFT token in the cryptocurrency blockchain is «attached» to each job. The second feature means that ill-wishers cannot change the data entered into the blockchain without large-scale efforts. This means that the problem of counterfeiting works and their thefts remains in the past.

And although the digital art niche on the blockchain has started to develop relatively recently, the current trading figures are already surprising. For example, in January of this year it became known about the purchase of a digital drawing of a monkey, which was then estimated at the equivalent of 176 thousand dollars.

At the same time, the investor did not hide that he spent so much money, including because he could do it. Well, in the future, he allows the possibility of selling a unique work – and at a higher price. The monkey looks like this.

This work was estimated at 140 broadcasts

Christie’s and cryptocurrencies

According to the CryptoArt.io platform , the artist under the pseudonym Beeple is currently the most profitable digital artist: the amount of proceeds for all his works sold has crossed the $ 8 million mark. The event was commented on by MakersPlace CEO Danny Chu, quoted by Decrypt .

This historic event marks an important turning point for both digital and visual art in general, bridging the apparent gap in global acceptance of digital collectibles.

That is, the expert assumes that in the future, virtual works that exist in digital form will be taken much more seriously. And a big role in this will be played by the blockchain, which guarantees the authenticity of the work and helps to confirm the ownership of a certain work without any problems.

One of Beeple’s works titled Jabba Afterbirth

Recall that in October last year, Christie’s sold at auction a digital «portrait» of the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. The artwork consisted of several large physical objects on which the most important information about the ecosystem of the main cryptocurrency was applied. The product came with its own unique token and sold for over $ 130,000, a record price for the digital arts industry at the time.

Dorian Nakamoto, who at one time was considered the creator of Bitcoin

In addition to the sphere of unique tokens , another interesting direction is thriving in the Ethereum ecosystem – unique addresses of Ethereum wallets, converted into easy-to-remember combinations. An Ethereum- based project called Unstoppable Domains that allows users to create “.crypto” website URLs has been integrated into the Cloudflare platform. Accordingly, after integration, users will be able to access Unstoppable Domains blockchain addresses from any browser, Cointelegraph reports .

Previously, websites built using the .crypto extension in Unstoppable Domains were only accessible through browsers that had already enabled access to them. Thanks to the use of Cloudflare DNS over HTTPS, all web browsers connected to the internet will now be able to access sites that end in .crypto.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin

While traditional domain name providers impose annual renewal fees on users and control many websites through centralized data centers, blockchain domains remain completely under user control. Common threats from a traditional website, such as privacy breaches, arbitrary censorship, and phishing attempts, do not affect crypto domains.

All in all, this shows the progress in the adoption of the cryptocurrency industry among ordinary users. Crypto is becoming a convenient medium of exchange and combating centralization, and blockchains are helping to expand the horizons of the possible in a wide variety of areas. In addition, all this finds application even in art. Apparently, this is only the beginning of a new round in the development of the digital assets sphere.

We believe that this event is indeed an important step both in the adoption of Ethereum among the general public, and in the development of the blockchain in general. Over time, more and more people find the use of new technology, which means that further the demand for cryptocurrencies and their networks will only increase. And this will surely have a good effect, including on investors.

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