Sotheby, one of the oldest and leading auction houses has announced that they would be accepting Bitcoin and Ether in partnership with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. Established in 1744, the firm first confirmed that the first piece of art sold against Bitcoin would be Banksy’s “Love is in the Air” at its coming auction. Sotheby’s CEO Charles Stewart in an interview with CNBC said that the decision was made based on the growing demand for digital assets.
"We are definitely seeing an interest on the part of cryptocurrency owners wanting to participate," says @sothebys CEO Charles Stewart on its partnership with $COIN. #btc #bitcoin #crypto pic.twitter.com/Y2ihPeVUuI
— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) May 4, 2021
Talking about the first art to be sold against cryptocurrencies, Stewart said,
“It’s something we have been thinking about for quite some time, What better combination to introduce crypto than an iconic Banksy painting.”
This bull season the demand for crypto payment has skyrocketed as many leading mainstream giants and Fortune 500 companies including Tesla, PayPal, and even TIME magazine has added support for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency payment options this bull season.
Crypto Payments a Growing Phenomenon
The NFT craze has brought crypto payments for artists to the mainstream where Bepple bagged a whopping $69 million paid in Ether. While Bepple cashed out as soon as he made those millions, but most of the other celebrities including American Football stars including Trevour Lawrence and Sean Culkin have signed to get paid in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
While the 2017 bull run put cryptocurrencies on the world map and despite the raging criticism around its volatility 2021 has proven to eradicate most of that criticism including Bitcoin not being used in the real world or crypto not being suitable enough to act as a form of payment. This bull season Fortune 500 companies and many others have realized that digital assets are here to stay and thus even Dogecoin which was once seen as mere meme currency is being used as a form of payment.