Georgia Kosmopoulou

Presenter: Georgia Kosmopoulou

Paper:  “Networks, Platforms, and Auction Pricing: Evidence from the NFT Art Market,” joint work with Kasra Khademorezaian and Carlos Lamarche

Abstract:

In recent years, CryptoArt prices have surged to levels typically associated with renowned artists' works, a phenomenon both puzzling and understudied. This paper examines the digital art marketplace to gain insights into how trading networks and platform connections affect prices. Our focus is on daily online auctions hosted on the Foundation platform. We find that larger seller trading networks lead to higher auction prices among lower priced digital art, while the influence of platform connections emerges as a critical factor, particularly among the most expensive digital art pieces.  Our research underscores that in decentralized online markets, the power to set prices rests with trading networks and platform connections, although their relative influence varies based on the auction price.