Sotheby’s to accept crypto payment for sports memorabilia NFT sale for first time

NFTs • February 15, 2022, 11:14AM EST
The Block

The centuries-old art auction house Sotheby’s announced on Tuesday that it will accept cryptocurrency payments for an auction including a sports memorabilia non-fungible token (NFT) sale for the first time. 

The item in question is a shooting shirt from the late Los Angeles Lakers basketball player Kobe Bryant as he scored 81 points in a 2006 game against the Toronto Raptors. The official authenticator for the National Basketball Association (NBA) verified and photo-matched the shirt, and no other worn item from Bryant has been released for public auction. 

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Bryant’s shooting shirt will be sold physically and have an accompanying NFT of an animation depicting Bryant’s 81-point game. The shirt’s starting price will begin at $200,000 USD. Sotheby’s will accept the final payment in ETH, BTC, USD Coin as well as fiat currency. 

Sotheby’s began selling NFTs in April of 2021 — primarily for digital art and not sports-related items but didn’t accept crypt payments for its auctions until May of that year. In all, Sotheby’s netted $100 million in NFT sales in 2021, The Block previously reported.

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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.

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