Drouot carries out the first NFT auction in its history

For the first time in its history, the famous Parisian auction house carried out a hybrid sale of urban art and NFT works.

This Thursday, April 4, a somewhat special event took place at Drouot, the auction house located in Paris. For the first time in its history, the 172-year-old institution hosted a hybrid sale of urban art and NFT works, called “Hacking Painting,” reveals Capital.

“Since 2018 and my discovery of the NFT Rarible marketplace, I wanted to do something with NFTs,” declared art expert Jean-Marc Scialom, at the origin of this auction which took two years to get up and running.

As a reminder, an NFT (“non-fungible token”) is a digital property title, issued by a blockchain (mainly Ethereum), and associated with a digital asset (photo, video, etc.). Each NFT is unique and cannot be reproduced. NFTs are used in art, the luxury sector or even for collectible cards in sports.

2 million active wallets

This sale targeted a wide audience, with works ranging from a few hundred to several tens of thousands of euros. Some NFTs put up for sale stuck to the web 3 news of the moment. This is the case of an NFT created by the artist Systaime, which highlights the “halving” of bitcoin, an unmissable event in the crypto ecosystem which will take place around April 19 (read our ‘ALL TO UNDERSTAND’ on this subject).

If the NFT market was in free fall in recent years compared to its peak of popularity in 2021, the NFT18 firm mentioned “encouraging signs” for the year 2024. At the end of January, the community did not desert this universe . The market has 2 million active wallets, down 10% compared to 2022. Likewise, the community is focusing on new blockchains or new layers, in particular on Ethereum layer2.

Furthermore, this market could benefit from renewed interest with the surge in the crypto market since the start of the year. Bitcoin has gained 60% since the beginning of January, including 50% in the space of three months, thanks to the conjunction of different economic factors, including investor optimism regarding the arrival of new financial products: spot bitcoin ETFs. in the USA.