Christie’s is closing its digital art department and has parted ways with Nicole Sales Giles, the auction house’s vice president of digital, Now Media reported Monday.
Sales Giles confirmed the news to Now Media, while a Christie’s spokesperson told the news site that the company had made “a strategic decision to reformat digital art sales.”
“The company will continue to sell digital art within the larger 20th- and 21st-century art category,” the spokesperson added.
The move comes just over four years after Christie’s staged the record-breaking sale of Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days (2021) for $69.3 million, which set the record for the highest price achieved for a digital artwork. The auction was also the house’s first NFT sale and is widely credited with igniting the 2021–22 NFT boom.
But 2025 is far removed from that frenzy. In the years since, the NFT market has crashed and never recovered. In 2022, Christie’s reported $5.9 million in NFT sales, a 96 percent decline from 2021. And in August 2024, one report found that 95 percent of NFTs were effectively “dead,” with the average owner facing a 44.5 percent loss on their investment.
Last year, Christie’s main rival, Sotheby’s, laid off at least four staffers from its Metaverse and other NFT divisions, leaving only Michael Bouhanna, vice president and head of digital art and NFTs; presale coordinator Davis Brown; and another staffer.
Christie’s did not respond to a request for comment at press time.
