Colleen Cash of Artnet on NFTs and the Art Market | NFTS.WTF Interview

Colleen Cash of Artnet Auctions on bringing NFTs into Artnet's price database, launching an on-chain marketplace, and building a bridge between crypto collectors and the traditional art market.Interviewed by David Cash. Book David to host, moderate, or speak: https://davidcash.ca

Recorded live in April 2022 at NFC Lisbon, David Cash talks with Colleen Cash of Artnet Auctions who joined Artnet in 2018 from the traditional brick-and-mortar auction world. She explains why Artnet's first NFT strategy was to wait until it could launch a fully on-chain, crypto-native marketplace, which it did in December 2021, and why the company went to the community first and asked to be taught. They discuss how blockchain transparency fits Artnet's DNA as a company founded in 1989 around its price database, what it means for NFT creators to see their auction records next to the greats of art history, the creator as market maker, a Rare Pepe sale that paired a new work with an original canvas, and what crypto collectors want for their walls.

Watch on YouTube

Chapters

1. 00:00 Intro: live at NFC Lisbon
2. 0:33 From traditional auctions to Artnet in 2018
3. 0:52 Artnet's on-chain NFT marketplace
4. 1:54 Artnet's price database and a culture of transparency
5. 2:20 Adding NFTs to the Artnet price database
6. 2:39 The creator as market maker
7. 3:13 A bridge in both directions
8. 3:37 Why the first strategy was to wait
9. 4:20 Gatekeepers or context providers?
10. 4:38 Crypto collectors with walls to fill
11. 4:56 The Rare Pepe sale and the original canvas
12. 5:33 Democratizing access to art
13. 6:07 What's next: helping people get into the water
14. 6:50 Constant evolution
15. 7:45 Where to find her and Artnet

Speakers

• David Cash, interviewer and editor-in-chief, NFTS.WTF
• Colleen Cash, Artnet Auctions

Key topics

• Artnet Auctions and its on-chain NFT marketplace
• Waiting until NFTs could be done authentically
• Asking the NFT community for guidance
• Blockchain transparency and the Artnet price database
• NFT creators alongside traditional artists in the auction record
• The creator as market maker
• Curated platforms as context providers
• Rare Pepe and historical NFTs
• Pairing digital and physical works in one sale
• Onboarding collectors with fiat on-ramps and custodial wallets
• Democratizing access to art

In their words

"Crypto billionaires have homes too." Colleen Cash

"Constant evolution is, I think, the name of the game." Colleen Cash

How to cite

APA: Cash, D. (2022). Inside Artnet Auctions: NFTs and the art market [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/BycRxT82Qhs

Chicago: Cash, David. "Colleen Cash of Artnet on NFTs and the Art Market." Recorded April 2022, Lisbon. YouTube video, 8:09. https://youtu.be/BycRxT82Qhs.

About NFTS.WTF

NFTS.WTF was a Web3 culture publication and interview series edited by David Cash. It covered artists, collectors, and builders during the 2021–2022 NFT boom. It ran for two years and closed after a board decision by the NFTS DAO, which left many of its interviews unpublished.

Recording details

Recorded April 2022 at NFC Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal. Originally published on NFTS.WTF, April 2022. This edition: archival re-release with chapters and captions, 2026.

Transcript

Machine-transcribed and reviewed. Timestamps link to the moment in the video.

[0:04] Hello everybody, welcome back to NFTS.WTF. My name is David Cash, your editor-in-chief, and we're here live at NFC Lisbon. It's been a great week, we're wrapping up our time here. But before we ended, we had to get a quick chance to chat with Ms. Colleen Cash, potentially a long-lost relative of mine, who knows. I think so. But definitely one of the people leading things at Artnet and doing some amazing things in the NFT space and the traditional art space and helping bridge that gap. So thanks so much for taking the time here. You want to give people just a little bit of an idea of your background and how you're at this NFT conference right now, of revving Artnet. Absolutely. I go to the traditional brick-and-mortar auction space, I work at Christie's. I joined Artnet in 2018 specifically to enter the online game, having no real idea that we would be in this universe, metaverse, all of a sudden.

[0:47] So we do about $30 million a year in traditional fine art across prints, multiples, photographs, and contemporary art, and we launched our fully on-chain, crypto -native NFT marketplace in December 2021. Thank you. We're looking at super OG historical NFTs. We're going to deep dive into Rarapepe. It's been an amazing experience, and we are really just trying. I mean, everyone says we're a bridge, but we really are, and Artnet is in a unique position to provide context, whether it's data or news or even just the opportunity to transact for those that might not be with the space. A hundred percent. No, there's so many things I want to dive into, but I think one thing that's worth mentioning, you know, our audiences, I think very quickly, a lot of collectors, the recent history of art, I should say, but Artnet and, you know, sites in which Artnet were really the secondary market for a long time, at least the online secondary market much entirely for the last,

[1:40] you know, couple of decades. You know, now in the NFT space, I think this is something that's already quite new to Artnet and, you know, your team, and what was the moment that you maybe collectively made that jump into, okay, we should actually start talking this digital... Artnet, again, you know, is a 33-year-old company founded in 1989 with the Artnet price database. That's sort of its core premiere product, and it was a tough go of it back then to convince people that we wanted transparency in the market. We wanted to know what things were trading for, so in a lot of ways... Publicize the provenance. Exactly. So in a lot of ways, the blockchain, the mainnet, the transparency spoke very much to our DNA, and we said, you know, it makes a lot of sense that we would be engaging in this, both from a context perspective and from a data perspective. So now we're putting NFTs on the price database.

[2:24] Creators, I think, have really found that meaningful, because all of a sudden, their auction records are alongside Picassos and Warhols and all of the greatest of the traditional artists. So what we've done, and we're being bold in expanding sort of the canon of art history to include NFT artists and creators, and likewise, as someone who works in the secondary market, I usually work with dead artists. Right. So all of a sudden, to be able to work with creators and realize their... Part of the process. Correct, and realize their process, their projects. Sort of the creator as market maker now, where before you had external people controlling the spigot of their market. It's no longer an AMM. It's like an MMS. Yes, exactly, exactly. Amazing. And I'm really excited to see how you continue to progress in the space, especially through Artnet, and also, I feel like there's a two-prong kind of approach.

[3:12] But I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. There's onboarding artists into the NFT space who, and in your case, I'm sure many of them are already, you know, at least digitally conscious, if not digitally native. But what I'm really excited about is bringing the NFT crowd into this traditional art collection market. And the fact that you're championing rare Pepe's and OG NFT artists right off the bat, I think is super cool. So I'd love to hear how you pitched that to Artnet and what their first thoughts were when you were like rare Pepe's, let's go. Totally. Well, you know, it's so funny. My first strategy with NFTs was to wait. Right? January 2021 into spring 2021, everyone was getting involved. And really rushed. I feel a lot of people. Yes, rushed and not authentic. So I said, until we can have an on-chain platform that's in ETH, that speaks to the community, I don't want to do it because it wasn't real.

[4:00] And I said, and I will say it to this day, you're welcome. And thank you for embracing us because we were honest and we went to the markets to some real thought leaders and mavericks. And we said, we know nothing in a very honest way. And we said, teach us what should we do? What advice can you give? What would you like? What would you like? Exactly. What would be meaningful? Because we also realize to have resources and absolutely. And we realize our position as a curated platform is in some ways understandably antithetical to DeFi. Right. Why do we exist? We have fee structures. We're gatekeepers. Yes, but we're also context providers. And that's what's so interesting. So when we're working with artists who are getting NFT space or likewise crypto people in the crypto world coming into the traditional space, we have to remember this is a period of transformative wealth unlike anything we've ever seen before.

[4:44] People, you know, crypto billionaires have homes too. And all of a sudden they have big walls to fill and sure, put up an NFT on one wall, but why not engage in another way? So for our Rare Pepe sale, we did something interesting where we had a brand new fake Rare made exclusively for the sale. And we actually sold the original canvas as well. So we're putting the two together and saying, look at the conversation these have one begets the other. You said gatekeeper, but honestly, I think it's not, I don't think it's quite there for Art Night at least, because I think that Art Night was also one of those places that, you know, like you said, the secondary market. Artists could upload their own work. Is it a featured collection? Is it, you know, one of your like curated drops? Not necessarily, but the egalitarian aspect that people can enter on their own. Exactly. I feel like it was already very native and true to.

[5:31] Totally. Absolutely. And to Art Night, I mean, really our founder's vision was to democratize the art world. He saw the high barriers to entry at Christie's and Sotheby's and all of those brick and mortars. I mention it a lot about the fact that we used Baudelaire, you know, 1800s reference points in our commerce today. Exactly. It's so true. So I mean, even we've been disrupting and everyone's a disruptor, especially in the crypto world. But truly, you know, when in a previous time, you could only buy a printer multiple two times a year at a big house. We have them 24 seven. So we've always been engaged in this idea of creating access, creating liquidity and creating opportunity for artists, creators, collectors and the trade alike. Super exciting. So what's next from your perspective? Are you really trying to push artists forward? Are you trying to bring more people onto the platform? Are you developing, you know, a new collector base?

[6:15] What's kind of your like, I don't want to say KPI because we're not going to be so corporate here. Totally. What's your vision right now? Your goal in the space? Absolutely. It's a good question. I am being open to the space, right? I'm really trying to engage in an open conversation. So I don't know what our next sale will be, but I can tell you that conversion is really important to us. You know, we want to help people get into the water. The water's fine. You just have to get comfortable with these operational ideas, things like the onramps help, you know, custodial wallets help. But really, we want to leverage the power of Artnet and sort of the context we have to help people jump into the pool because the water is pretty fun. I want to leave with, you know, we talk a lot about contextualization. I talk about like adding value to artists in the process. But I feel like really the value is coming for the collector.

[6:59] If you can take a process that's really antiquated and very difficult and simplify that for somebody, you know, build it and they will come. And I feel like that's really what's happening. So I love the fact that you're stepping back and listening as your first response to the space. But even more so, now once you've already had a couple of successful collections, you're still open and you're still looking. Totally. You're still looking forwards because, you know, a lot of people, especially now, they've gotten into the NFT space. And they're like, OK, we did NFTs and now we have NFTs. But, you know, the space is, I talk about hyper modernity and the fact that we're evolving so rapidly and everything changes every day. So I'm really excited to hear that. That's your perspective. Totally. Constant evolution is, I think, the name of the game. Look at how far the industry has come in 16 months.

[7:40] Who knows what the next 16 months will bring. But excited to be in it together with you, David. Just for anybody who is new to you and all the work you do. You can find me at Colleen Cash on Twitter or you can find me at Artnet.com. Beautiful. Thank you so much for taking the time. Such a pleasure. Thank you so much for watching. This is NFTS.WTF. My name is David Cash.