Pair of Banksy paintings bought with Ethereum at Sotheby’s
A pair of Banksy artworks – “Trolley Hunters” and “Love is in the Air” – were sold at auction last night for 3,093 Ethereum, almost $15m.
The paintings were purchased through Sotheby’s, which accepted the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency for the first time.
Trolley Hunters was sold for 1,607 ETH ($6,698,400), while Love is in the Air was snapped up for 1,938 ETH ($8,077,200) – both around a million dollars above their estimate.
The purchase comes only months after Sotheby’s became the first auction house to accept cryptocurrency as a payment option for a physical work of art, when a separate painting by Banksy was offered in the May 2021 Contemporary Evening Auction.
Ether, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, is a preferred cryptocurrency for the digital art and NFT community, as the Ethereum
blockchain is the primary network where NFTs are minted and transactions are registered.
