The Art of Blockchain
For ages, arts have influenced human society for more than its aesthetic values due to its store of value attributes. Like every other store of value in the marketplace, elitist and greed open doors for counterfeits and robbery. It’s a well-known fact that even a handful of fraudsters can boom any market with new investors due to their get rich-quick-scheme skills.
The problem is, these new entrants were not attracted to the industry for the right reasons, the end results are, of course, bad experience and mistrust, recking every industry they touched! In the case of the art market, lack of technological innovation in this space has made it too difficult to clean up and repair its reputation, the few online art platforms out there lacks transparency and little to no information to educate the interested parties.
Authenticity, forgery, attribution and lack of provenance are the greatest threat to the art industry, according to the Deloitte Art & Finance 2017 report. Though that is becoming a thing of the past thanks to the blockchain technology which can disrupt any industry and usher in security and transparency at least.
I think art on the blockchain is a perfect marriage, due to blockchain tamper-proof, and consensus mechanism which can easily be applied to artworks, for authentication and provenance traces.
Though numerous systems have been implemented in the past, none met expectations due to lack of efficiency, integrity and universality. Things have changed! We have blockchain now, BUT not without a killer strategy and unstoppable team for execution. And I think I have come across a new blockchain system that is well-positioned to tackle these art market age-long, bad-market, especially for the new artist and private buyers.
Before we delve into my newly discovered platform (ArtPro), lets, first consider the fact that about one-third of all art sales are forged artwork, and about $6 billion is lost annually in art and collectibles as a result of fakes and forgeries.
According to ArtPro research: “The Fine Arts Expert Institute’s chief Yann Walther claims that between 70–90% of artworks his organization is paid to authenticate are fakes”.
The art market has little to no presence online giving the emerging artists few options to migrate to the web and gain exposure like every other industry, one of the biggest draw-back to any industry still limited to bricks and mortar premises is “payment”. In a digitalized business world, waiting five working days for a wire transfer is now a deal-breaker for oversea investors.
Any system capable of mitigating these problems would be primely positioned to tackle: 1)Provenance trace, 2) A well-fed database of authenticated works and 3) A state of the art online presence for P2P transaction.
Is ArtPro the Solution?
“By combining traditional authentication methods with digital techniques, ArtPro solves the provenance problem”. As quoted by the ArtPro co-founder & CEO, Oliver Hams
Isn’t that quick and simple? For what ArtPro represents, that’s the quickest and correct answer for a sustainable solution to a problem that is as old as artwork history itself, so why not borrow it? I mean, I couldn’t have come up with that perfect answer as quickly as he did.
Though, ArtPro does not in any way propose to have all the answers to the art world age-long problems. Especially the fact that a blockchain system cannot prove the authenticity of artworks that existed long before blockchain, but it does make an excellent tool for recording newly created art and tracking its journey, as it exchanges hands.
The ArtPro marketplace, however, seems to be well-positioned to play an important role in advancing the art industry into a globalized digital and trust-less world.
In-line with the spirit of blockchain technology, ArtPro platform is peer to peer (P2P Network) marketplace which connects buyers directly with the artists, diminishing the intermediaries to mitigate the usual excessive fees and to democratize art for all, it comes with an information-rich portal to better educate both parties and further establish confidence and transparency that is much needed in the space.
As noted earlier the following three criteria are very important before one can even start entertaining a possible solution to the art market pitfall:
Provenance, Authentication and Online presence
1. Provenance
The authenticity of a work of art’s history can come into questioning at any point in time (best at the point of sale otherwise it might be too late). Artworks are usually accompanied by a document customarily known as provenance which confirms its authenticity through ownership history. A genuine provenance leaves no doubt in proving the authenticity and ownership of an artwork. But like every other documentation, provenance can be faked in order to fool inexperienced investors and that’s where blockchain with its immutable digital records shines again!
Now, let’s see how ArtPro is applying this blockchain digital record to authenticate provenance for lasting peace in the minds of art market community.
ArtPro follows three unique steps to thwart any attempt to falsify chain of provenance:
1) Identity of owner or seller: Every seller on the ArtPro marketplace will be required to carry out a “know your clients” (KYC) procedure to prove their identity. For traceability, each artwork owner or seller’s identity will be hashed and stored on the blockchain through the blockchain hashing system to ensure that every verified art can be traced. Furthermore, ArtPro will assign an id to each artwork using ERC721 token standard for lineage trace and transfer with the current owner attached to the token, that is to ensure immutable store and trail record of each art movement on the blockchain.
2) The authenticity of the piece in question: ArtPro’s KYC-ed vetted experts will authenticate each artwork on the platform. Any KYC-ed artists wishing to submit works themselves can upload their certificate of authenticity which will be distributed and stored on the blockchain using Interplanetary File System.
3) To ensure that the artwork transacted is the same as the piece identified on the blockchain: ArtPro’s accredited experts will re-authenticate every piece of art above $50,000 at the point of sale, though human verification can be requested for artworks below $50,000 for a fee. The authentication process combines a high-resolution photograph and RFID tag then the data is hashed and stored on the blockchain.
3. Online presence
The ArtPro online presence speaks for itself in an infotainment-rich portal where art enthusiasts can easily browse and learn the fundamentals of works of art and the artist behind the artwork, through multimedia resources such as articles, tutorials, videos and AR. The portal is fully decentralized to connects buyers directly with the artists. In spite of being transparent, ArtPro protects the enormity of the buyer to ensure confidence and security to both buyer and seller.
The simplicity and the user-friendly interface entices many, especially the emerging artists, who previously are constrained to traditional art galleries which usually represents the elite artists. The Augmented Reality (AR) feature is a groundbreaking tool, it elegantly showcases a realistic representation of the artwork in a 3D space, thereby increasing the confidence of buying art online.
In addition to the already jaw-dropping online portal, ArtPro is proposing its first dApp “ArtPro Reports” this decentralized app will contain a complete directory of every artwork inventoried on the ArtPro platform and browseable by provenance report, artist, genre, date, price, and more. The dApp will also be updated with augmented reality giving users the opportunity to preview works of art in its original place, perfect for an international audience.
The ArtPro online portal is a state of the art … go to marketplace enabling anyone, regardless of geo-location to acquire contemporary art using cryptocurrency. The online portal will also feature a secondary market for resellers, a turnkey business doesn’t get any better than a fully established and proven business model!
ArtPro Native Token Utility
The ArtPro marketplace and its related platforms are powered by its utility native token (APT) which serves as a method of payment in ArtPro ecosystem. The token is utilized in P2P transactions regardless of geo-location, thereby bridging between seller and buyer, which mitigates the usual listing fee of up to 50%, the P2P payments will be escrowed until a buyer confirms receipt of the purchased item.
ArtPro Website or Whitepaper The ongoing IEO
This is a sponsored article written for a bounty reward. Bounty0x profile: bitbounty
