Christie’s has closed its dedicated digital art department, ending a high-profile but brief push to treat NFTs as a standalone auction category. The change, reported at the end of August, included the departure of two staffers — notably vice president of digital art Nicole Sales Giles — while specialist Sebastian Sanchez will remain in New York.
Giles had been a visible advocate for the initiative, headlining Christie’s Art+Tech Summit in Hong Kong and arguing that Christie’s applied the same valuation discipline to NFTs as it does to paintings and sculptures, but that digital works depend more on community engagement to establish value. At the same summit, Art Basel Hong Kong director Angelle Siyang-Le warned the market still lacks standardized measures for valuing digital art.
The timing underscores broader market weakness: NFT trading volume fell 45% last quarter to $867 million, even as sales counts rose 78% to 12.5 million, according to DappRadar. Floor prices for blue‑chip collections have retreated — CryptoPunks around 46.6 ETH (~$210,000), Bored Apes near 9.1 ETH (~$41,000) and Moonbirds at 2.8 ETH (~$12,600) — while Ethereum itself has rallied roughly 76% in three months to about $4,509.
Observers on social channels suggested Christie’s move is driven by economics rather than a verdict on crypto art: without firmer valuation standards, many digital works are increasingly absorbed into mainstream contemporary sales rather than sustaining a separate collectible market. For collectors and investors, the episode highlights persistent volatility and liquidity risk in NFT positions and the continued need for clearer price benchmarks.
Source: Now Media. Read the original coverage for full details.