Sotheby’s, the British auction house, has revealed its plan to expand its Web3 arm, Sotheby’s Metaverse. The platform will now include a secondary non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace, providing collectors with the opportunity to buy, sell, and exchange digital assets directly on the website.
The transactions will occur fully on-chain via the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains, with users able to pay using native tokens (ETH and MATIC).
Sotheby’s Metaverse will offer a curated selection of the leading artists in the industry, hand-picked by the specialists at Sotheby’s. The platform will provide context for each work, from thematic presentations to artist spotlights.
The marketplace will kick off with 13 well-known Web3 artists, including Tyler Hobbs, Diana Sinclair, XCOPY, and others.
Sotheby’s will also ensure that artist resale royalties are honored directly on-chain through marketplace smart contracts, while the selling fee will remain fixed at 2.5%.
The auction house established Sotheby’s Metaverse in 2021 to provide a dedicated online destination for rare NFTs, and it has since hosted many NFT auctions.
In addition, Sotheby’s has recently announced the upcoming sale of “GRAILS,” a collection of some of the most notable NFTs ever amassed by the now-insolvent Three Arrows Capital (3AC) corporation.
