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Christie's top rival follows suit! Sotheby's will hold an NFT auction for digital artist Pak next month

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According to previous reports, the American digital artist Beeple auctioned off a digital art piece as an NFT at Christie's, one of the world's prestigious auction houses, for a high price of $69,346,250, bringing the concept of NFTs from the niche realm of cryptocurrency into the mainstream global art world. In this trend, another mainstream auction house has announced plans to hold an NFT auction event.

Sotheby's to Host NFT Auction

Last night, Charles Stewart, the CEO of Sotheby's main competitor, Sotheby's, stated in an interview on CNBC's Squawk Box that the company has been paying attention to the NFT space for some time now and announced that they will be hosting an NFT auction event for the anonymous digital artist Pak next month. Stewart pointed out in the interview that there are indeed many exciting things happening in the NFT space, and that it does hold potential for long-term development.

It is worth mentioning that the company's interest in the NFT space is not just talk. In fact, as early as January of this year, Sotheby's expressed interest in Pak's work through Twitter.

Who is Pak?

The anonymous artist Pak is the first NFT artist to earn over $1 million. According to data from cryptoart.io, the total sales of their work have exceeded $350 million. According to an article on Medium by the venture capital firm 1confirmation, this mysterious artist is the founder and chief designer of the internationally renowned film studio Undream and AI artist Archillect, has been engaged in digital art creation for over 25 years, and has collaborated with hundreds of major brands and studios.

Accepting Cryptocurrency Payments

On the other hand, Charles Stewart also expressed the possibility of accepting cryptocurrency as a payment method in the future. If this plan comes to fruition, Sotheby's will become the first mainstream auction house to accept cryptocurrency payments. Stewart stated that although the related plans and measures are not yet fully prepared, the company is willing to pave the way for cryptocurrency investors who want to participate in art auctions.

"There is a big demand now for people to pay for digital art auction fees with cryptocurrency, so why not allow them to use cryptocurrency as a payment method for physical art as well? Perhaps we can accept cryptocurrency to buy artwork and then convert it to cash to pay the seller, or the seller may be willing to accept cryptocurrency directly. If managed properly, then let's do it."