Major Auction House Christie's Accepts Bitcoin for Painting Worth Estimated $6 Million

British auction house Christie’s will accept bitcoin and ether for a painting worth an estimated $6 million. The digital wallet used to pay for the painting must be held at one of the approved custodians, such as Coinbase, Fidelity, Gemini, or Paxos.

Paying for Paintings With Bitcoin at Christie’s

Christie’s, one of the largest auction houses in the world, will accept cryptocurrency for a painting by Keith Haring at its “20th/21st century” sale in London next week.

Katharine Arnold, co-head of post-war and contemporary art for Christie’s in Europe, told Reuters that the painting “is probably the very first example that we see of an artist celebrating the computer.” She elaborated: “It was 1984 that Apple Macintosh was first launched. So it’s really a piece of history.” Arnold added:

So the potential for paying in cryptocurrency for the full hammer price and buyer’s premium was something that felt like this was a perfect marriage.

The painting has an estimated value of 3.9 million pounds – 4.5 million pounds ($5.42 million – $6.25 million).

Two cryptocurrencies will be accepted. “Payment in ether or bitcoin must be made via a digital wallet transfer of that currency to Christie’s,” the auction house’s website describes, noting that partial payments from multiple digital wallets will not be allowed.

However, the digital wallet used must be held with one of the following custodians: Coinbase Custody Trust, Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets Services, Gemini Trust Company, Gemini Europe Ltd., Gemini Europe Services Ltd., Paxos Trust Company, Digivault Ltd., Ziglu Ltd., or Archax Ltd.

Christie’s emphasized:

Only payments sent from digital wallets maintained at these platforms will be credited towards this lot purchase, and we will not recognise payments from digital wallets hosted at other exchanges or self-hosted wallets.