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Top Auction House Christie's to Accept Ether Cryptocurrency for Digital Art Sale

The sale gives Christie's a chance to "dip its toes" in crypto, said a New York representative.

Updated May 9, 2023, 3:16 a.m. Published Feb 18, 2021, 10:16 a.m.

British auction house Christie's has confirmed it is accepting ether (ETH), the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network, as a form of payment for a coming digital art auction.

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Christie's told Bloomberg it will accept ether as a form of payment for a work by digital artist Mike "Beeple" Winkelmann, according to a Thursday report.
However, the premium – the fee an auction house charges on an artwork's sale price – must be paid in U.S. dollars.
The artwork being sold is a collage of thousands of pieces of art Beeple has posted online since 2007, as CoinDesk reported.
Called "EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS," the piece will be delivered to the buyer along with a unique nonfungible token encrypted with Beeple's signature.
“We’re at this precipice where crypto is going to be such a more established and mainstream mode of conducting business,” Noah Davis, a Christie’s art specialist in New York, told Bloomberg.
“With this [sale], I think it’s the perfect way to dip our toes in and give this a shot,” said Davis.

payments Art Ether Christie's CoinFlash

Tanzeel Akhtar

Tanzeel Akhtar has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Forbes Africa, Financial Times, The Street, Citywire, Investing.com, Euromoney, Yahoo! Finance, Benzinga, Kitco News, African Business Magazine, Hedge Week, Campden Family Office, Modern Investor, Spear's Wealth Management Magazine, Global Investor, ETF.com, ETF Stream, CIO UK, Funds Global Asia, Portfolio Institutional, Interactive Investor, Bitcoin Magazine, CryptoNews.com, Bitcoin.com, The Local, The Next Web, Mining Journal, Money Marketing, Marketing Week and more. Tanzeel trained as a foreign correspondent at the University of Helsinki, Finland and newspaper journalist at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. She holds a BA (Honours) in English Literature from the Manchester Metropolitan University, UK and completed a semester abroad as an ERASMUS student at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. She is NCTJ Qualified - Media Law, Public Administration and passed the Shorthand 100WPM with distinction. She does not currently hold value in any digital currencies or projects.