Christie's collaborates with OpenSea for first of its kind NFT auction

On November 24, Christie's announced its partnership with the world's largest NFT marketplace, OpenSea, for the first on-chain digital collectibles auction.

The collaboration christened Christie's X OpenSea launches on December 1 and will be hosted on the Ethereum blockchain via OpenSea.io, with the NFTs curated by Christie's.

The British auction house sold its first NFT, "Everydays: The First 5000 Days" by Beeple, for a groundbreaking $69 million in March. Since then, it has become a popular medium for digital artists to put their work up for sale. With this partnership, it hopes to cement its place in the business of NFT auctions.

Speaking on the alliance, Noah Davis, Christie's Specialist and Head of Digital and Online Sales, said "With this collaboration, we are bringing the Christie's brand boldly onto the blockchain. Our collaboration with OpenSea allows us to combine our expert curation and prestigious provenance with the convenience of decentralization. My hope is that this will be the beginning of a new era for NFT sales at Christie's, where this amazing technology can be deployed to its full potential and help to onboard even more traditional contemporary art collectors to Web3."

Davis is a member of the team overseeing the collection curation, along with Ronnie Pirovino, a Curator and Crypto Collector, and nft now – an NFT news and analytics site.

Featured Artists on Christie's X OpenSea 

The event would feature works of artists; Andre O'Shea, Alpha Centauri Kid, Ash Thorp, Beige, Blake Kathryn, CyberKongz, DotPigeon, EtherRock, FriendsWithYou, Fvckrender, GMUNK, Joshua Davis, KESH, Krista Kim, Maciej Kucera, Mad Dog Jones, Tom Sachs, Olive Allen, Oseanworld, Victor Mosquera, WhIsBe, and Recur.

The collection will open for browsing from December 1 to December 3, while the biddings will be open from December 4 to December 7.

To join the event, participants would have to visit the OpenSea website, and they can make biddings and payments in the Ethereum cryptocurrency.

The buzz around NFTs has continued to increase in recent years, with some even calling it an evolution of fine art collecting.

Regardless of opinions about it, the digital collectibles marketplace has continued to grow, with the sales volume of NFTs hitting $10.7 billion in the third quarter of 2021, increasing more than eightfold from the previous quarter, according to reports from market analyst platform, DappRadar.

Photo: Christie's