Digital art continues to be profitable despite a dip in popularity
Sotheby’s, one of the world’s largest art brokers and auction houses, had “close to $35 million” in digital art sales in 2023. The amount was disclosed by company vice president and head of digital art, Michael Bouhanna, who dubbed 2023 as “one of the most exciting years for digital art.”
Bouhanna finalized Sotheby’s year-end results regarding digital art in a December 23 post on X (former Twitter). Sotheby’s conducted its initial live digital art auction this year with 300 people attending and $12 million in sales. It also registered the highest fee to date for digital artwork after a nonfungible token (NFT) titled “Ringers #879,” designed by digital artist Dmitri Cherniak, sold for $6.2 million.
2023 at Sothebys will remain one of the most exciting years for Digital Art!
🚨 What We Achieved 🚨
Close to $35 million in sales.
Launch of a fully on-chain secondary marketplace that honors creators' royalties.
Our very first dedicated live auction with more than 300… pic.twitter.com/rabrxntz9Z
— Michael Bouhanna (@michaelbouhanna) December 23, 2023
The house has hosted over 25 auctions, concentrating solely on digital art or including it in modern art sales. The business has also founded its own on-chain marketplace called Sotheby’s Metaverse for secondary trading of NFTs.
Bouhanna also declared that Sotheby’s will focus on “supporting creators and enhancing their primary market strategies” next year.
Founded in 1744, the British-American clearing house first emerged on the NFT stage in April 2021 after auctioning off the creation of a pseudonymous digital artist named Pak and has since completed several record-breaking sales of digital art.
With the recent rise of Bitcoin, NFTs have made a recovery, with the overall volume of trades in November approaching $1 billion. The average value of NFT transactions swelled by 114% that month, moving from $126 to $270, indicating that users are more inclined to conduct higher-value trades than in prior months.
