The Russian State backed museum has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from nonfungible tokens, as da Vinci’s artwork has received the highest bid of 150,500 BUSD in the Hermitage’s first NFT auction on Binance.
The Russian State Hermitage Museum, the world’s largest museum, has completed its first NFT auction, selling five tokenized items featuring works by painters such as Leonardo da Vinci and Vincent van Gogh on Binance’s NFT platform.
Wassily Kandinsky’s Composition VI, Giorgione’s Judith, Da Vinci’s The Madonna and Child, Claude Monet’s Corner of the Garden at Montgeron, and van Gogh’s Lilac Bush were among the five NFT copies of Hermitage-hosted artworks included in the sale.
The Hermitage’s auction generated more than $444,000 in Binance USD (BUSD), a US dollar-denominated stablecoin operated by Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, according to data from the Binance NFT platform.
The Madonna and Child by Da Vinci received the highest bid at the auction, with the winning bidder paying 150,500 BUSD for the digital representation of the famous painting.
The Hermitage said its legal department was working with legal consulting firm LFCS to create and sell NFTs using a model that “fully complies with Russian legislation” when it announced the plans in July.
In the meantime, payments in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are still illegal in Russia. Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s official spokesman, stated earlier today that Russia has no reason to recognize Bitcoin as legal tender because it would be harmful to the country’s financial system.
In January 2021, Russia’s crypto law, “On Digital Financial Assets,” made it illegal for residents to make payments in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
