Recently, the Russian State Hermitage Museum, the largest museum in the world, finished its first auction on the NFT platform by Binance, auctioning 5 tokenized collectibles depicting masterwork from artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Vincent van Gogh.
The sell-off included five NFT copies of Hermitage-hosted artworks, counting Wassily Kandinsky’s “Composition VI,” Da Vinci’s “The Madonna and Child,” Giorgione’s “Judith,” Claude Monet’s “Corner of the Garden at Montgeron” and van Gogh’s “Lilac Bush.”
As per Binance data, the auction brought about a total of more than $444,000 worth of Binance USD. BUSD is a U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoin operated by Binance.
Interestingly, till now the Russian state has maintained a mostly unfriendly stance on cryptocurrencies, and on the other hand, a major state-backed museum is benefiting from the crypto-industry by raising hundreds of thousands of dollars with NFTs.
Source: www.binance.com
The highest bid in the auction went to the digital representation of the famous artwork "The Madonna and Child," for 150,500 BUSD.
Announcing the auction plans in July, the Hermitage said that the Legal department of the Hermitage and the legal consulting company LFCS, have created a model for the creation and sale of NFT, which fully complies with Russian legislation. "Thus, an important precedent has been created that will allow integrating the Russian market into the international turnover of NFT."
Its worth noting that the Hermitage will not make any operations with cryptocurrency and all proceeds will go to the Museam in Fiat currency i.e Russian rubles.
Russia does not recognize Bitcoin or any crypto currency as legal tender, and has officially prohibited residents from making payments in cryptocurrencies as part of its law, On Digital Financial Assets, in January.
"The experience that the Hermitage shows to the entire art market is invaluable, it opens up a lot of new opportunities for development. I am sure that soon we will see even more projects that will positively affect the development of a unique union of blockchain and art." said Head of Binance NFT -Helen Hai.
