Art auction houses were among the early adopters of NFT. In 2019, two years before the first NFT hype cycle, 4,000 auction houses partnered with Artory, a blockchain-based art registry to record historic artworks and sales. Serious collectors immediately saw the appeal: for the first time, a secure digital trail of art provenance became publicly available (well, only to vetted “experts” and institutions like Christie’s). This documentation process makes valuation more efficient and adds authe...