#Sotheby’s to auction world’s first known NFT

Sotheby’s will auction off the world’s first known NFT this week — and is pulling out all the stops as it attempts to give historical weight to the red-hot digital art craze.

Kevin McCoy’s “Quantum” — a simple red, blue and pink image which was created in May 2014 — will be sold alongside 26 other NFTs in an online auction running for one week starting Thursday.

Sotheby’s pulled no rhetorical punches in its description of McCoy’s “Quantum,” drawing comparisons to Pablo Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles D’Avignon” and Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” as works that “close chapters on the art histories that came before, while anchoring a new flowering of human creativity.”

NFTs — also known as non-fungible tokens — are one-of-a-kind, verifiable digital assets. They first gained mainstream attention in March when Sotheby’s rival Christie’s sold an NFT by the artist Beeple for an eye-watering $69 million.

Other pieces on sale in the Sotheby’s auction include the first NFT by acclaimed Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda and a rare “Alien CryptoPunk” NFT.  Buyers will be allowed to pay in fiat currency, as well as cryptocurrencies bitcoin and ether, according to Sotheby’s, which previously sold a series of NFTs by the artist “Pak” for $16.8 million.

The auction houses’ embrace of NFTs shows the growing acceptance of cryptocurrency and blockchain-related technology, according to Nic Carter, a general partner at blockchain-focused venture capital firm Castle Island Ventures.

“Certainly NFTs have greater mainstream cultural penetration than virtually any other concept that has emerged from the crypto space,” Carter told the Post. “NFTs are just another form factor for art, so it doesn’t surprise me that brokers like Sotheby’s and Christie’s are embracing them.”

But people looking to make a quick buck from the next Picasso may soon face more scrutiny from regulators. Broker and broker-dealer industry self-regulator the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is currently examining NFTs and could eventually begin policing the market, the Post reported last month.