Philips will be auctioning a world-famous artwork called “Laugh Now Panel A” created by the anonymous street artist Banksy. Jonathan Crockett – Asia Chairman at the company – announced that BTC or ETH would also be accepted as a means of payment on the auction.
Philips Enters the Crypto Community
In a recent Bloomberg interview, Jonathan Crockett highlighted that Philips would accept the largest cryptocurrencies – bitcoin and ether – to purchase Banksys “Laugh Now Panel A”. The executive revealed that the seller insisted on the move as it would grant him more potential buyers and a higher price as an outcome:
“We're really doing this because the seller was open to the idea of opening bidding to a new pool of potential buyers and therefore achieving a higher sale price as a result.”
Additionally, Crockett outlined cryptocurrencies‘ recent success as many investors gained profits from their growth in terms of USD prices throughout the years. He went further, stating that Philips’ move was “inevitable.”
The Asia Chairman clarified that the buyers would not be able to use various digital assets to conduct the purchase of the piece of art, but only the top two by market capitalization – bitcoin and ether. In any way, the standard way of payment remains Hong Kong dollars for those who prefer fiat money. The price of Banksys “Laugh Now Panel A” is estimated to range between $2,820,000 to $4,100,000.
Crockett agreed that many Asian companies had shown interest lately in the potential of cryptocurrencies. He noted that the technology giant Philips is only testing the matter with this move as they have never dealt with digital assets before:
“This is very much us dipping our toes in the water.”
Art for Crypto
In yet another auction, presented by Goldin Auctions earlier this year, an anonymous buyer purchased a signed football card of Tom Brady for about $1.68M worth of the cryptocurrency Litecoin (LTC). The company revealed that this is the most expensive item to be paid in digital assets since it started accepting such payments.
Back then, Ken Goldin – Founder of Goldin Auctions – stated that his firm would continue to accept cryptocurrencies as the buyers prefer it as a way of payment:
“Trading cards and crypto are now two of the most rapidly growing alternative asset classes and we know there is a lot of overlap between the communities.”
Tom Bradys card is regarded as the “Holy Grail” of the collecting industry. In fact, a similar card of the legendary quarterback from the 2000 Playoffs still holds the pricing record as it was sold for $2.25M at Lelands Auctions.