Sotheby’s to auction Banksy paintings offline for Ethereum

Sotheby’s will put up for sale two works by the street artist Banksy. Participants in The Now at the auction house’s New York salon смогут делать ставки in Ethereum alongside fiat currencies.

Banksy, ETH meet LIVE in historic auction first 💎 Sotheby’s will field real-time bids in $ETH for Banksy’s iconic paintings Trolley Hunters and Love is in the Air in The Now sale next Thursday. #SothebysNow https://t.co/yjTRC7Sdhr

— Sotheby’s (@Sothebys) November 11, 2021

The auction will take place on November 18. It will offer 23 lots, including two Banksy paintings: Trolley Hunters and Love Is In The Air (2006). The first is valued at $5–7 million, the second at $4–6 million.

Earlier Sotheby’s sold another version of the Love Is In The Air (2005) for $12.9 million. It was preliminarily valued at $3–5 million, and bids were accepted in US dollars, Bitcoin and Ethereum. At that time, the house first accepted cryptocurrencies as a means of payment, though the sale was online.

According to CoinDesk, this time Sotheby’s will also accept online bids — the auction house will duplicate the bidding in its “digital representation” on the Decentraland platform.

Last month the organization launched its own NFT marketplace Sotheby’s Metaverse. In the same month, the first trades took place on the platform.

#NativelyDigital is back!

Sotheby’s is proud to welcome our second dedicated NFT sale — ‘Natively Digital 1.2: The Collectors.’ pic.twitter.com/izl1BPZJuc

— Sotheby’s (@Sothebys) October 7, 2021

Earlier in September, Sotheby’s sold a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT set from Yuga Labs for $24.4 million.

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