Phillips Auction House to Accept Crypto Payments
- The winning buyer of Banksy’s “Laugh Now Panel A” will be able to pay either in HKD or BTC and ETH.
- This is the first time the Hong Kong auction house has offered crypto payments for a traditional auction.
Phillips
The auction is set to take place between 7 June and 8 June and the artwork is currently being taken on tour to Shenzhen, Taipei, Taichung, and Hong Kong. Banksy’s “Laugh Now Panel A” has an estimated value between $2.82 million and $4.1 million.
According to Jonathan Crockett, the Asia Chairman at Phillips, the winning buyer or the iconic artwork will have the option of paying for the auction either in Hong Kong dollars (HKD) or cryptocurrencies. Crockett told Bloomberg that the company will convert the artwork’s hammer price into Bitcoin or Ethereum according to Coinbase’s conversion rate on the day of the sale.
He went on to explain that offering the option to pay in cryptocurrencies will help Phillips reach a new pool of potential buyers. With the recent rise in popularity NFTs have seen, as well as Phillips’ own two NFT auctions, the company hopes to achieve a higher sale price by introducing new payment options.
“There’s good money to be made in cryptocurrencies and NFTs,” Crockett said. “It was just a matter of time before it would transfer to traditional art, as well.”
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