Objects

considers more than supply and demand: it is a hybrid type of prediction market where art is bought and sold for values based not only on a work´s perceived cultural value, but on both its past monetary value as well as its predicted future value. The market has been described as one where producers don´t make work primarily for sale, where buyers often have no idea of the value of what they buy, and where middlemen routinely claim reimbursement for sales of things they have never seen to buyers they have never dealt with. Moreover, the market is not transparent; private sales data is not systematically available, and private sales represent about half of market transactions. In 2018, Robert Norton, a CEO and co-founder of Verisart, noted that "Art is the second-largest unregulated market after illicit drugs and it´s significantly overshadowed by fraudulent activity."