World's first cryptocurrency art auction

The Blockchain Maecenas platform announced today, June 7, that it will hold the "World's First Cryptocurrency Auction", according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph. The platform will sell the fractional ownership of Andy Warhol's "14 Little Electric Chairs" - worth $ 5.6 million - to the crypto-friendly British art gallery Dadiani Syndicate on June 20th.

The sale of a 49% ownership of the painting, which is part of the Warhol 1980 Reversal series, will allow buyers to obtain partial-ownership digital certificates on the Maecenas Blockchain platform using their ART token as well as the Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).

Maecenas creates tamper-proof digital artwork certificates on the Blockchain, which investors can then buy and sell to other investors on the Maecenas platform.

According to the press release, while a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain will determine the final price for Warhol's painting, Maecenas noted that the reserve price is set at $ 4 million and that all buyers must submit to KYC and AML checks.

The Dadiani Fine Art Gallery has started accepting cryptos as a payment method in 2017, and the Dadiani Syndicate, which operates as a luxury market, accepts Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin (LTC) as payment options.

The Blockchain technology has already been applied to the art market to solve previous problems of verification of providence, copyright, property, and valuation and authenticity of a piece.