Art Auction Giant Sotheby's Unveils On-Chain NFT Secondary Marketplace

cryptonews.com:

Major auction house Sotheby’s revealed a secondary non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace that allows users to buy curated NFTs on the Ethereum (ETH) and Polygon (MATIC) networks.

Sotheby's is not new to the NFT realm, and this time they decided to expand their offering with a curated, peer-to-peer secondary marketplace.

The sales system will be integrated and fully on-chain, enabling the buyers to pay in ETH or MATIC, the native token of the two blockchains. 

Furthermore, Sotheby's Metaverse, which is the art auction house's Web3 arm, will allow direct transactions between the platform's users.  

"Featuring a rotating, curated selection of leading artists hand-picked by Sotheby’s specialists, providing expert guidance and context for each work, from thematic presentations to artist spotlights, for an easy-to-navigate experience designed for discovery," said the Luxury auction house on Twitter. 

There is a 2.5% seller fee, it added, while artist resale royalties will be honored directly on-chain through marketplace smart contracts. The platform will automatically pay artists according to the royalty rate they select.

However, "NFT owners are also free to take their NFTs to other exchanges that don’t honor royalties," Forbes reported. 

Thirteen previously approved artists are allowed to sell their NFTs even before Sotheby's has seen them, meaning they don't have to run the art by the auction house. They'll be able to sell existing and yet-to-be-created artworks. 

The artists include Tyler Hobbs, Claire Silver, Sarah Zucker, XCOPYPY -0.1%, Diana Sinclair, IX Shells, Refik Anadol, Sofia Crespo, Sam Spratt, Pindar van Arman, Osinachi, Hackatao, and Sebastião Salgado.

"The opportunity to expand Sotheby’s Metaverse with a fully on-chain