The British auction house Christie’s made a strategic decision on the dismissal of personnel and the disbandment of the digital art sales department as an independent business unit, the company said.

The digital art department of Christie’s became famous for the record sale of the artist Mike Winkelmann (Beeple) “Erydays: The First 5000 Days” for $ 69.3 million in 2021, which became a significant moment for the entire NFT market. Christie’s also sold nine rare Cryptopunks tokens for $ 17 million and launched its own Christie’s 3.0 item for conducting auctions on the blockchain.

199.png

However, the decline in the interest of investors in NFT and the general fall of the art market in 2024–2025 made the content of the independent department unprofitable. For example, if in 2021 NFT Christie’s sales amounted to about a quarter of the company’s annual turnover and attracted a new young audience, then in 2024–2025 the share of digital lots became negligible.

The representative of the auction house clarified that against the backdrop of the world decline in the activity of investors in the market of works of art, the sale of NFT and other objects of digital collecting will be carried out in a larger direction of art of the 20th and 21st centuries, and not a separate segment.

Earlier, NFT Price Floor analysts reported that the market of non-replaceable tokens lost more than $ 1.2 billion in a few days, and the total capitalization of NFT collections fell by 12%, to $ 8.1 billion, due to the drop in the price of the air price.