Sotheby’s, the 279-year-old auction house, has recently launched a peer-to-peer NFT marketplace called Sotheby’s Metaverse.
The platform is built on both Ethereum and Polygon and enables users to trade NFTs using ETH or MATIC tokens. The platform charges a 2.5% transaction fee.
The new NFT marketplace offers a limited selection of handpicked artists. At launch, Sotheby’s Metaverse features 13 artists, including Tyler Hobbs, XCOPY, Claire Silver, Sam Spratt, and Refik Anadol. Sotheby’s plans to rotate the selection of artists periodically.
The platform also enforces creator royalties through the use of smart contracts. Sotheby’s Metaverse is one of the only major NFT marketplaces committed to artist resale royalties.
The auction house stated, “Sotheby’s commitment to honoring artist royalties comes amidst a larger debate about royalties within the NFT community and signals Sotheby’s artist-first ethos.”
NFT marketplaces have taken different stances on creator royalties. OpenSea announced in February that it would collect a minimum royalty of 0.5% on all collections, while other marketplaces do not enforce creator royalties.
The two largest NFT marketplaces, OpenSea and Blur, have collected less than $3.5M collectively from creator royalties in the past seven days.
According to Dune Analytics, NFT royalties paid have decreased by over 60% in the past three months, with royalties paying users declining by nearly 75%.
While the NFT market is experiencing a severe downturn, Sotheby’s Metaverse is hoping to revitalize it by offering a curated selection of NFTs and enforcing creator royalties.
The interest in blue-chip NFTs has been declining, but Bitcoin Ordinals is one of the few bright spots in the market. Inscriptions have surpassed two million, a new milestone for the NFT.
