Three of today’s most popular series of NFTs – Bored Apes, Meebits and CryptoPunks – will be among the lots offered at Christie’s upcoming auction.
An expert at Christie’s confirmed the news to Declassified.
NFTs are non-forgeable tokens: blockchain-based collectibles that can be bought and sold as proof of ownership of documents on the internet. Christie’s sold its first NFT last year, along with a corresponding physical sculpture. Sensing a nascent market (and competition from Sotheby’s), the auction house has only expanded its digital assets business since then.In March, Christie’s sold digital artist Beeple’s NFTs for $69 million.
CryptoPunks – a set of pixelated, masked photographs attached to NFTs – is one of the oldest and most prized experiments in crypto art. Each possesses certain “features,” some rarer and more valuable than others; one may have blue skin, another may wear a hat or smoke a cigarette. As of this morning, the cheapest CryptoPunk NFTs now cost over $100,000. Some have sold for over $7 million.
In May, Christie’s sold a group of CryptoPunks for about $17 million.
Meebits is another generative cryptocurrency art project from Larva Labs, the developer behind CryptoPunks. And Bored Ape Yacht Club is the successor to CryptoPunks – a new iteration of the same formula.
The NFTs in the upcoming auction are all from the collection of a single owner, although Christie’s has declined to reveal the identity of the owner. The auction is scheduled for late September at the auction house’s Hong Kong showroom.
