Auction center ready to accept cryptocurrency as payment method

In the context of the increasing adoption of digital currencies in transactions. An American auction center, the Philips Center, announced its willingness to accept payments in cryptocurrency for a set of paintings. It is the most important center for public auctions and is at the forefront in the field. The paintings are a collection of works by painter Jean-Michel Pasquet that has been auctioned off by the Philips Centre. It turns out that Bitcoin and Ethereum are included as one of the buying methods.

The most important painting from the collection is a 16-foot-tall painting painted by Pasquet in 1982. Its value is estimated at about $70 million (equivalent to 1,650 Bitcoin or 25,513 Ethereum). The painting will be shown on May 18 at the auction house in New York City.

A contemporary art expert at Phillips stated that buyers have expressed interest in buying paintings for cryptocurrency:

Interest in cryptocurrencies and NFT tokens is rapidly growing in the traditional art world. Although it is not possible to predict what may happen in the future, we believe that the convergence of digital and traditional art will continue to increase.

It should be noted that this is not the first time that auction house Phelps has thought about cryptocurrency. However, the price and size of the paintings were on a smaller size than the aforementioned Pasquette painting. In June of 2020, the house offered one of Banksy's work and was ready to accept Bitcoin and Ethereum. The painting was sold for $3.2 million.