The 278-year-old auction house sold a record $7.3 billion worth of art in 2021, thanks in part to its willingness to plunge into the hot nonfungible token (NFT) business. Most of Sotheby’s sales still involve more familiar forms of art, like works by Botticelli or Banksy, but $100 million in NFTs were sold at Sotheby’s auctions last year, from cartoon monkeys known as Bored Apes to the source code of the World Wide Web. While Christie’s and other auction houses also showed interest in this new tech, Sotheby’s became the first major auction house to open a virtual gallery in the metaverse, helping it stand out from rivals as a technological revolution upends centuries-old norms of bidding and selling.
A weekly newsletter featuring conversations with the world’s top CEOs, managers, and founders. Join the Leadership Brief
- Effective Altruism Promises to Do Good Better. These Women Say It Has a Toxic Culture of Sexual Harassment and Abuse
- Inside Bolsonaro's Surreal New Life as a Florida Man—and MAGA Darling
- From Jan. 6 to Tyre Nichols, American Life Is Still Defined by Caste
- As People Return to Offices, It’s Back to Miserable for America’s Working Moms
- The Real Reason Florida Wants to Ban AP African-American Studies, According to an Architect of the Course
- Column: Tyre Nichols' Killing Is The Result of a Diseased Culture
- Without Evusheld, Immunocompromised People Are on Their Own Against COVID-19
- Column: America Goes About Juvenile Crime Sentencing All Wrong
- Why Your Tax Refund May Be Lower This Year