Global art sales shift online, NFT prices soar

Youth grasp NFT

The majority of NFT bidders or buyers at auction houses are newcomers to the brands. For Christie's, 74 percent of NFT buyers were newcomers. Sotheby's 78 percent of NFT bidders were new clients, more than half below age 40.

"It's the entry point to invest in not only digital art, but also traditional contemporary art," notes Chu. Buying an NFT is a much easier and less intimidating alternative, to bidding at auction houses, or buying in galleries. NFTs normalize art collecting and investment. Crypto-art sweeps the youth, especially the millennials, as these digital nomads are already used to buying art on social media, Chu observes.

Guillaume Cerutti, CEO of Christie's adds that the boom in NFTs piques the interest of traditional collectors who are becoming aware that physical art and digital art are overlapping.

"It demonstrates how NFTs and digital art are permeating the pre-existing market as a growing movement with real staying power," concedes Drahi from Sotheby's Asia.

In Hong Kong and other Asian regions, where a storage room is a luxury with humidity risk all year round, NFTs offer a sweet spot for art collection — you own it, but don't have to rent a space for it, or worry about deterioration in storage.

Drahi identifies two major trends driving the Asian preference: First, demand for Western art by collectors in the region remains strong and keeps growing, as reflected by the $334 million record sales of Western art in 2021. Second, there's been rigorous demand for contemporary art by young Asian artists too.

Among the most favored genres of fine art across Asian collectors is contemporary art, Chu figures, because the themes and ideas are relatable. "Since Sotheby's began offering Western art in Hong Kong five years ago, the art market has quickly evolved, and the shift in taste is largely driven by the influx of a new generation of collectors," he says.

While artworks by old masters are returning to the spotlight gradually, Chu regrets that they remain overlooked and under-appreciated. NFTs as a digital medium embraced by young collectors, can help reintroduce and reinvigorate the interest in Renaissance and medieval art, believes Chu.