NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and the emergence of a new category in Sotheby's and Christie's global auction market

Abstract

This chapter explores Sotheby’s and Christie’s role in leading the global market for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), focusing on how they are creating and establishing NFTs as a new market category. The chapter will examine the meanings attached to the category NFTs, and how they shape collective perceptions of value in art. In particular, it develops a chronology of sales held by Sotheby’s and Christie’s between 2020 and 2021, and it demonstrates the range of strategies each auction house deployed to make themselves competitive against each other, as well as to establish themselves as the arbiter of value for NFTs. This is an early study conducted on the role of global auction houses in the making of a market for NFTs.