Nigerian NFT artist becomes the first to use social tokens during a Christie’s event

On Thursday, the Nigerian NFT artist Osinachi incorporated social tokens during an event at Christie’s — marking the first time social tokens have been used at the art auction house. 

At the event at Christie’s in London, Osinachi displayed five NFTs in the collection “Different Shades of Water,” also marking the first time an African artist displayed an NFT at Christie’s Europe. 

The display included a unique monetary incentive aimed at viewers. If they shared pictures of the art on social media, they could earn $OSINA tokens via a scannable QR code. These so-called social tokens will then be usable on the Socialstack CommunityOS Shop to purchase Osinachi’s NFTs, merchandise and other physical products. 

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Social tokens are cryptocurrencies tied to individuals, communities or brands. Osinachi is the Chief Creative Officer of the DAO platform Socialstack, a social token platform based on Ethereum and Celo that was used to create and disseminate Osinachi’s $OSINA tokens.

Christie's has been increasing its involvement in the NFT market since its landmark $69.4 million sale of Beeple's Everydays: The First 500 Days collection in March. Last month it auctioned off Meebits and Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs.

As for the Osinachi event, Christie’s was “excited to learn more about social tokens and to see how it goes,” Socialstack CEO Andrew Berkowitz told The Block.

About Author

MK Manoylov has been a reporter for The Block since 2020 — joining just before bitcoin surpassed $20,000 for the first time. Since then, MK has written nearly 1,000 articles for the publication, covering any and all crypto news but with a penchant toward NFT, metaverse, web3 gaming, funding, crime, hack and crypto ecosystem stories. MK holds a graduate degree from New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) and has also covered health topics for WebMD and Insider. You can follow MK on X @MManoylov and on LinkedIn.