In Brief:
- Sotheby’s will accept payment in crypto for the auction of the rare diamond “The Enigma”.
- The diamond is the largest cutting 555.55-carat black diamond in the world.
- Sotheby’s will use Coinbase commerce to take payment into Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDC.
One of the oldest auction houses, Sotheby’s will accept Crypto payments for the next auction of a rare 555.55-carat Black diamond, “The Enigma”. The auction house will accept bitcoin, Ether, and USDC for the sale of a rare diamond. The diamond claims to have elements from interstellar space.
The company got the inspiration for crypto payment after last year’s auction when the diamond collectors sold another rare 101.38-carat diamond “The Key 10138” for $12.3 million in cryptocurrency.
“This present sale is a continuation of our efforts to strive to lead the market given the strong cryptocurrency community,” Nikita Binani, Sotheby’s jewelry specialist and head of sales in London, said “I would hope that we’re able to attract them towards this diamond.”
Currently, the diamond is currently traveling and being displayed in Dubai, Los Angeles, and London. In the case of crypto transactions, Sotheby’s will use Coinbase Commerce.
“To have a natural faceted black diamond of this size is an extremely rare occurrence and its origins are shrouded in mystery,” Sotheby’s wrote in a press release. “[It’s] thought to have been created either from a meteoric impact or having actually emerged from a diamond-bearing asteroid that collided with Earth.”
The diamond is the largest black diamond in the world and is listed as the largest cut diamond in the Guinness Book of World Records. Many jewelry experts believe that the diamond origin belongs to meteoric impact or asteroid collision.
