Why blockchain is transforming the art market
Blockchain has been making waves in many sectors, including art. As a result, Grand View Research says the global blockchain market has already hit $31.28 billion and could expand to $1,431.54 billion by 2030. In art, the growth momentum has been the same. According to Polaris Market Research, the global digital art authentication blockchain platforms market could reach $431.23 million this year (2025) and jump to $6.5 billion by 2034.
The days when people only associated blockchain with digital currencies and BTC to USDconversions are long gone. Today, individuals are turning to it to solve real-world problems like the growing need for transparency. This is a big part of why the art sector has opened its doors to this technology. Do you remember the instance in 2021, when a digital collage by American artist Beeple sold for over $69 million?
That was just one example of how blockchain could transform the art world. In response, more collectors and auction houses started adopting the technology to verify authenticity, track provenance and secure ownership rights. And even after monthly sales of art-related NFTs significantly declined in 2023, two transactions (for Dmitri Cherniak and Tyler Hobbs) still exceeded $1 million.
How did it all begin?
Shortly after Ethereum’s launch in 2015, the world’s leading auction houses started implementing blockchain. In 2018, Christie’s became the first auction house to use this technology when it registered the Barney A. Ebsworth collection on the Artory registry. The collection had 90 artworks, all costing $318 million. With this innovation, potential buyers could view transaction histories before bidding, while collectors could register artworks anonymously without storing information in the database.
About four years later, Christie’s launched its own fully on-chain auction platform, Christie’s 3.0, dedicated to exceptional digital art. This made it the first auction house globally to host fully on-chain NFT sales. While the company recently closed its digital art department, Christie’s 3.0 NFT marketplace platform is still active. NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are a type of digital asset that represent ownership or proof of authenticity of a unique artpiece on a blockchain.
Christie’s wasn’t the only one
Sotheby’s is another auction house that didn’t miss out on this trend. In 2021, it held its first sale of NFTs worth about $17 million in collaboration with artist Pak. If that was not enough, Sotheby’s accepted crypto as a payment method for a physical Banksy artwork a few days after the NFT sale, making it the first time for the company to use blockchain for payment.
And even though NFT art sales have significantly declined since the 2021 hype, several experts hope the market will stabilize and mature. Business Research, for instance, values it at $5.32 billion in 2025 and expects it to hit $8.5 billion by 2033. Perhaps that’s why crypto exchange Binance noted a 4% gain in the NFT market in August 2025. But again, there are still uncertainties surrounding the general NFT market.
Binance Research team says, “Market saturation, declining buyer interest, and increased skepticism around the long-term value of digital collectibles have contributed to subdued activity. Additionally, broader macroeconomic uncertainties coupled with the lack of new utility have dampened investor enthusiasm, limiting further expansion in the sector. It remains uncertain whether the uptrend in activity will be sustained or merely represent a temporary surge in interest.”
Transforming ownership of content
Ownership in the art world has always been a slippery thing. A masterpiece might hang in a museum, but its paperwork is buried in a vault, and its market value is inaccessible until someone decides to sell. Well, with blockchain, users can now get ahead of such challenges. Through tokenization, the technology breaks down a single artwork into digital shares. As such, you won’t need millions to buy a Basquiat; you can simply purchase a fraction and be good to go.
Think of it as being able to transact a single painting as you would a stock. The beauty of tokenization is that multiple investors can hold regulated shares in a single piece, creating 24/7 tradability and price discovery beyond the fixed cadence of auctions. For museums and galleries, tokenization can unlock capital without physically shipping or selling the work. For example, you can use tokens as collateral or sell securities tied to collections.
Replacing shaky paper trails with tamper-evident ledgers
Among the long-standing challenges of the art industry is forged artworks. For instance, in June 2024, ARTnews exposed a US tech company, CO2Bit Technologies, for exhibiting a highly disputed Kazimir Malevich artpiece at the Centre Pompidou in Paris without the museum’s knowledge. In some sectors, like the Russian avant-garde, 95% of content was suspected of being illegitimate.
Recording details like past sales, repairs and exhibition history on a single secure and shareable ‘block’ can help overcome these challenges. This allows market participants to track an artwork throughout its entire life cycle, offering a level of authenticity that has never been seen. Digital artists can also create scarcity for their content and even sell it directly to potential customers.
In addition, institutions can use NFTs to improve customer engagement. They could, for example, use these tokens to embed royalties and package experiences like VIP access. Such experiences can make customers more emotionally connected with an auction house, resulting in better business performance.
However, these benefits do not automatically mean blockchain will become the new norm here. Remember, many collectors buy art pieces primarily for emotional connection, even if the work is not a strong financial investment. This points to the fact that the art market’s culture may not really favor complete financialization. Again, blockchain still struggles with regulatory uncertainty and volatility challenges, which could limit its further adoption in the sector.
