How Blockchain changed the art world in 2018

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The 2018 brought ups and downs to the art market. sale at auction the records were broken, the levels of confidence wavered, the paintings were torn apartand social media have continued to change the role of the artist in the industry. One of the most important changes was the increase in the lively conversation about the blockchain, which was introduced to increase market transparency, track ownership and provenance, and provide an infrastructure for the tokenisation of sales of Fractional art.

While there are many unanswered questions related to regulation, standardization and governance, there is clearly an increased interest from various stakeholders and more startups that are aiming to introduce these new technologies. This is arousing in-depth discussion about their potential to disrupt the market, as well as the inherent challenges they can face.

Here are some of the key moments of 2018 concerning the impact of the digital currency on the art world and some forecasts on how this technology could help shape the market in the future.

The summits were dedicated to the blockchain

The growing interest of the blockchain industry has been made evident by its presence in the media. There was a noticeable increase in art and blockchain news, and a number of lectures were devoted to the topic. 2018 of Ethereal summit, a global conference on blockchain technology, has placed the accent on the world of art, also concluding the event with a live auction. 2018 was also the year when Christie & # 39; s, one of the world's leading auction houses, held its premiere Art + Tech Summit, dedicated to "Exploring Blockchain". The speakers discussed the positive and negative attributes of the technology, questioning whether the art world was ready for the blockchain and, if so, whether it could have a significant impact.

Art was thrown for the first time

In July, the blockchain platform Maecenas collaborated with the London gallery Dadiani Fine Art to offer fractional shares in the 14 Small Electric Chairs by Andy Warhol (1980). 31.5% of Warhol's work went on sale in cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. The total dollar value of the cryptocurrency share of the work was $ 5.6 million. He was a point of reference for art and technology. Chief Executive Officer of Mecenate he told the Times it was "the first work of art of many others to come".

Going forward, the use of blockchain and tokenization could allow easier access to the market, diversification of investments, reduction of transaction costs and greater liquidity.

Christie & rsquo; s became the first major auction house to record sales via Blockchain

In November, Christie & # 39; s New York made history of the art world when he collaborated with the register register protected by blockchain. The auction house $ 318 million the sale of the Barney A. Ebsworth collection, one of the most important sales of the year, has seen its transactions recorded entirely via blockchain.

The Artory register keeps track of stories, origin and storage, allowing buyers to remain anonymous, increasing buyer and seller confidence.

"Provenance and authenticity are the main determinants of the value of each work of art", founder of Artory said AlleyWatch. "Currently, it has been impossible to have complete trust on these aspects for many works of art."

The use of blockchain, however, allows the company to "effectively monitor, permanently store and protect competently" transaction data. "This combination overcomes every traditional obstacle to a register of the art title, opening the door to a new era of trust in provenance and authenticity".

The blockchain is only valid as the data entered, so the main priority of Artory is to keep expanding its records. They are doing this by placing more dealers and auction houses and working with artistic data providers.

A Blockchain-based auction house has been launched

At the same time as the tokenised sale of Warhol's painting, the collector's platform, Portion, announced the opening of its blockchain-based auction house. Led by blockchain technologist Jason Rosenstein, the venture is backed with $ 5.5 million in funding.

Portion works like an eBay for the high-end market. "It allows anyone to be his own auction house", making artistic investment seemingly more accessible. Launched as a market for digital art, it plans to eventually offer art works as well. Transactions will be made via cryptocurrency (token & # 39; ports & # 39;), eliminating all second and third parties.

Many fear that this could put the secondary market at risk, as the smart contracts written on the Ethereum blockchain will replace the process of clearing a secondary exchange.

Digital artists used Blockchain technology to their advantage

In the last five years, digital artists have been at the forefront of blockchain innovation. In addition to using it to make or authenticate easily reproducible works, some artists used blockchain as the medium itself.

Before 2018, projects such as CryptoPunks had inspired the CryptoArt movement, challenging the perceptions of digital art by creating specific works for commerce using cryptocurrencies. Originally started as an "experiment", this year have increased in popularity by participating in the summit of Christie's Art + Tech along with similar digital markets such as SuperRare and Dada.nyc.

In February, the artist Kevin Abosch created "Forever Rose", a $ 1 million virtual art work and fractionally offered for cryptocurrency. Each buyer should own 10% of the work as a token registered in a blockchain.

But there were also reservations

At the Deloitte art finance conference in October, very ambitious statements about how the blockchain could transform the market were welcomed with some degree of skepticism. Many feared that blockchain could open the door to counterfeiting, lead to inconsistencies in archived data and cause scalability and performance issues, which could have a negative impact on the user experience. The general consensus is that, in order for the blockchain to flourish, it is necessary to enforce regulation to ensure consistency.

Even with a standardized approach, however, it is difficult to see how detection of provenance through blockchain can be effective with non-contemporary works of art. For example, the attribution of Old Master's paintings is often re-evaluated. The paintings are often identified as the work of several years of artists along the line. Others are sold with deliberately vague attributions ("From the school of Leonardo", for example) while research is ongoing. The closed nature of the tracking of origin on the blockchain does not currently allow subsequent changes and may therefore leave permanent inaccuracies related to such work. Furthermore, any wrong input in the ledger would not allow for changes, limiting the possibility of revision and correction over time.

Last year it certainly proved that the blockchain continues to make waves in the art industry, but there is still a long way to go. While the sale of Ebsworth's $ 318 million and the launch of startups like Artory show that the market is catching on, it is clear that more data must be gathered and strategies put in place to avoid the obvious and increase consumer confidence. At present, when buying art, the security of a face-to-face meeting with a specialist is difficult to replace, especially with blockchain technology still in its infancy. That said, blockchain innovations are helping to drive the technological transformation of the art market, and this looks set to progress in 2019. This remains, however, only a part of a broader conversation about art, technology and the future of investments.

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The 2018 brought ups and downs to the art market. Auction records were broken, confidence levels decreased, the paintings were destroyed and social media continued to change the role of the artist in the industry. One of the most important changes was the increase in the lively conversation about the blockchain, which was introduced to increase market transparency, track ownership and provenance, and provide an infrastructure for the tokenisation of sales of Fractional art.

While there are many unanswered questions related to regulation, standardization and governance, there is clearly an increased interest from various stakeholders and more startups that are aiming to introduce these new technologies. This is arousing in-depth discussion about their potential to disrupt the market, as well as the inherent challenges they can face.

Here are some of the key moments of 2018 concerning the impact of the digital currency on the art world and some forecasts on how this technology could help shape the market in the future.

The summits were dedicated to the blockchain

The growing interest of the blockchain industry has been made evident by its presence in the media. There was a noticeable increase in art and blockchain news, and a number of lectures were devoted to the topic. The 2018 Ethereal Summit, a global conference on blockchain technology, has placed the accent on the world of art, even ending the event with a live auction. 2018 was also the year Christie & # 39; s, one of the world's leading auction houses, held its first Art + Tech Summit, dedicated to "Exploring Blockchain". The speakers discussed the positive and negative attributes of the technology, questioning whether the art world was ready for the blockchain and, if so, whether it could have a significant impact.

Art was thrown for the first time

In July, the blockchain platform Maecenas collaborated with the London gallery Dadiani Fine Art to offer fractional shares in the 14 Small Electric Chairs by Andy Warhol (1980). 31.5% of Warhol's work went on sale in cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. The total dollar value of the cryptocurrency share of the work was $ 5.6 million. He was a point of reference for art and technology. The CEO of Mecenate told The Times that it was "the first art work of many others to come".

Going forward, the use of blockchain and tokenization could allow easier access to the market, diversification of investments, reduction of transaction costs and greater liquidity.

Christie & rsquo; s became the first major auction house to record sales via Blockchain

In November, Christie & # 39; s New York made history of the art world when he collaborated with the register register protected by blockchain. The $ 318 million auction of the Barney A. Ebsworth collection, one of the most important sales of the year, saw its transactions recorded entirely via blockchain.

The Artory register keeps track of stories, origin and storage, allowing buyers to remain anonymous, increasing buyer and seller confidence.

"The provenance and authenticity are the main determinants of the value of each work of art," said AlleyWatch to the founder of Artory. "Currently, it has been impossible to have complete trust on these aspects for many works of art."

The use of blockchain, however, allows the company to "effectively monitor, permanently store and protect competently" transaction data. "This combination overcomes every traditional obstacle to a register of the art title, opening the door to a new era of trust in provenance and authenticity".

The blockchain is only valid as the data entered, so the main priority of Artory is to keep expanding its records. They are doing this by placing more dealers and auction houses and working with artistic data providers.

A Blockchain-based auction house has been launched

At the same time as the tokenised sale of Warhol's painting, the collector's platform, Portion, announced the opening of its blockchain-based auction house. Led by blockchain technologist Jason Rosenstein, the venture is backed with $ 5.5 million in funding.

Portion works like an eBay for the high-end market. "It allows anyone to be his own auction house", making artistic investment seemingly more accessible. Launched as a market for digital art, it plans to eventually offer art works as well. Transactions will be made via cryptocurrency (token & # 39; ports & # 39;), eliminating all second and third parties.

Many fear that this could put the secondary market at risk, as the smart contracts written on the Ethereum blockchain will replace the process of clearing a secondary exchange.

Digital artists used Blockchain technology to their advantage

In the last five years, digital artists have been at the forefront of blockchain innovation. In addition to using it to make or authenticate easily reproducible works, some artists used blockchain as the medium itself.

Before 2018, projects such as CryptoPunks had inspired the CryptoArt movement, challenging the perceptions of digital art by creating specific works for commerce using cryptocurrencies. Originally started as an "experiment", this year have increased in popularity by participating in the summit of Christie's Art + Tech along with similar digital markets such as SuperRare and Dada.nyc.

In February, the artist Kevin Abosch created "Forever Rose", a $ 1 million virtual art work and fractionally offered for cryptocurrency. Each buyer should own 10% of the work as a token registered in a blockchain.

But there were also reservations

At the Deloitte art finance conference in October, very ambitious statements about how the blockchain could transform the market were welcomed with some degree of skepticism. Many feared that blockchain could open the door to counterfeiting, lead to inconsistencies in archived data and cause scalability and performance issues, which could have a negative impact on the user experience. The general consensus is that, in order for the blockchain to flourish, it is necessary to enforce regulation to ensure consistency.

Even with a standardized approach, however, it is difficult to see how detection of provenance through blockchain can be effective with non-contemporary works of art. For example, the attribution of Old Master's paintings is often re-evaluated. The paintings are often identified as the work of several years of artists along the line. Others are sold with deliberately vague attributions ("From the school of Leonardo", for example) while research is ongoing. The closed nature of the tracking of origin on the blockchain does not currently allow subsequent changes and may therefore leave permanent inaccuracies related to such work. Furthermore, any wrong input in the ledger would not allow for changes, limiting the possibility of revision and correction over time.

Last year it certainly proved that the blockchain continues to make waves in the art industry, but there is still a long way to go. While the sale of Ebsworth's $ 318 million and the launch of startups like Artory show that the market is catching on, it is clear that more data must be gathered and strategies put in place to avoid the obvious and increase consumer confidence. At present, when buying art, the security of a face-to-face meeting with a specialist is difficult to replace, especially with blockchain technology still in its infancy. That said, blockchain innovations are helping to drive the technological transformation of the art market, and this looks set to progress in 2019. This remains, however, only a part of a broader conversation about art, technology and the future of investments.

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