A digital art piece inscribed on Bitcoin’s Ordinals protocol titled “Ascend” has been sold for $57,450 at Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Day, beating its low estimate of $39,000.

Ryan S. Koopmans and Alice Wexell’s Bitcoin Ordinal “Ascend” was sold for £44,100 (equivalent to $57,450) on Oct. 10 at Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Day sale. The piece was initially estimated to sell at a price of £30,000 or $39,222.

This marks the first time a Bitcoin Ordinal has been featured in a live auction at Christie’s, one of the world’s oldest and most storied auction houses, founded in 1776.

About the Artwork

The artwork captures the beauty of a revitalized Iveria Sanatorium in Tskaltubo, Georgia. The structure, built between 1952 and 1962, has fallen into ruin and has since been revived through Koopmans and Wexell’s digital work. “Ascend” is a part of Koopmans and Wexell’s “The Wild Within” project, which combines visual photography with 3D technology to bring abandoned structures back to life.

Christie’s Auction Highlights

‘Ascend’ by Ryan Koopmans and Alice Wexell sells for £44,100 ($57,450)! A record for the artists’ ordinals market. Congrats to the buyer!

Unique Features of Bitcoin Ordinals

Manager of Digital Art Sales at Christie’s, Sebastian Sanchez, discussed how Bitcoin Ordinals differ from NFTs on Ethereum, presenting a new challenge for artists who seek to create within that realm.

“Ordinals present different constraints such as requiring a much smaller file size than what’s possible on Ethereum, so typically we don’t see a lot of high-quality art. However, artists are working with these constraints and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible,” said Sanchez.

He explained that Ordinals add an extra layer of protection that external databases lack. External servers that become inactive run the risk of permanently deleting the image files stored inside them. In contrast, Ordinals attach images and videos onto an individual Satoshi, the smallest unit of Bitcoin, without using external links.

However, Sanchez noted that Ordinals have a “steeper learning curve” in terms of technicalities compared to NFTs, making them harder to introduce to the mainstream art community.

Combining Digital and Physical Art

Sanchez also highlighted that more artists are experimenting with combining digital and physical artworks.

“We’ve seen artists create digitally-native work where the owner has the right to receive a signed print from an artist, as well as physical works that have Certificates of Authenticity on the blockchain,” he said.

Background of the Artists

Both Wexell and Koopmans are no strangers to the worlds of traditional fine art and photography. In September 2024, artworks from their acclaimed digital art series “The Wild Within” were installed in the former Royal Villa of Durres at the first International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Durres, Albania.

Another one of their artworks, “The Thought of You,” was created based on an abandoned villa in Italy. The piece was showcased at Enter Art Fair in Copenhagen, Denmark, from Aug. 29 until Sept. 1.

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