Christie has closed his digital art department, finishing a short -lived but influential experiment that saw non -fungible tokens (NFT) Have a place along with paintings, sculptures and other works in art sales of the auction house, according to a report by now media.
Two employees were fired at the end of August, including Digital Vice President Art Nicole Sales Giles, while the specialist Sebastian Sánchez will remain in New York.
Giles played a prominent role at the Christie Art+Tech Summit in Hong Kong last year, which was executed next to Hong Kong’s Fintech week.
Giles had been a prominent face of Christie’s digital impulse, especially at the Art+Tech Summit in Hong Kong last year, which worked next to Hong Kong’s Fintech week.
There he argued that Christie brought the same discipline of valuation to NFT as to paintings or sculptures, but with a critical difference.
“The only thing that is digital art is the aspect of commitment of the community, which goes into play absolutely in a way that has never done it with traditional art,” he said at that time.
Others at the summit recognized that the category was still far from maturing.
“I don’t think that at this moment we have a very standardized understanding of [digital art’s] Value, “said Angelle Siyang-Le, director of Art Basel Hong Kong last year.” That is why you look a lot from suddenly, and then obviously created that emotion. That emotion created that conscience. And now from here to the next phase … How do we align such values standards? “
A year later, the numbers show how fragile that base was.
The NFT negotiation volume fell 45% the last quarter to $ 867 million, even when sales counts increased 78% to 12.5 million, according to Dappradar.
Floor prices for NFT Blue Chip NFT collections have been reduced well below their maximum levels: Cryptopunks CIRIGE Around 46.6 eth ($ 210,000), Boring apes Disadvantage at 9.1 eth ($ 41,000)and Lunar birds sit in 2.8 eth ($ 12,600). On the contrary, Ethereum has recovered 76% in the last three months to $ 4,509, exceeding the NFT market.
In X, some observers argued that Christie’s decision reflects the simple economy instead of capitulation, noting that NFTs are increasingly being absorbed in conventional contemporary sales instead of treaties as a separate “collectible” category.
This Christie retreat suggests that without firmer valuations and clearer standards, NFT runs the risk of continuing to be a complement to contemporary art instead of maintaining its own market.
