The Auction House

Christie’s piloted a blockchain-based encryption and registration service at the November auction of the Barney A. Ebsworth Collection in New York. The auction house worked with art registry service Artory to create a digital certificate for pieces in the estimated $300 million sale (which included work by Edward Hopper and Georgia O’keeffe). The certificate records a description of the work and price, and tracks its provenance as it gets bought or sold. Richard Entrup, chief information officer at Christie’s, says that the benefits of the blockchain include “increased transparency and long-term data security for relevant information about the artworks.”