Blockchain company Arteïa has announced the launch of its Initial Coin Offering (ICO) and is offering the first comprehensive, advanced technology platform set to empower art collectors by linking a collection management system to a matching platform supported by a provenance tracker.
“We’ve raised €3 million already since the creation of the company to develop our working platform, and we are onboarding new collectors every week,” said CEO Philippe Gellman. “Now it’s time to rocket our project on an international basis, and an ICO seemed the most accurate way to get the necessary means and develop a whole tokenized ecosystem. We will bring more efficiency and liquidity on the secondary market, with much lower fees than on the actual art market and more transparency, creating a universal ledger by anchoring in the blockchain the provenance of art pieces. The Arteïa solution powered by our ICO is a promise of greater transparency and more equal distribution for the art market.”
Arteïa Collect, launched in October 2018, is the ultimate cataloging solution to manage any kind of collection and was created by collectors for collectors.
At the end of the ICO, Arteïa will open its decentralized platform, allowing art market actors to interact around a provenance ledger to share, study, inventorize, lend and trade artworks through matching marketplaces in a tokenized ecosystem.
Founded in 2016 in Brussels, Arteïa’s project stems from the desire to bring more transparency and more security to the art world. The project is led by a mix of experts from the art, business and tech fields. Its founders Philippe Gellman (CEO), Marek Zabicki (CTO) and Olivier Marian (CSO) are both entrepreneurs and experienced collectors.
Unlike most projects, Arteïa’s MVP will be fully functional at the end of the ICO and will already offer the five use cases described in the white paper to the token-holders.
The solution for an art market looking for innovation
The art market is one of the last to be touched by the digital revolution. Art is a very profitable asset class, and art sales have been booming in the past few years, partly due to the gradual introduction of online sales and online-only auctions. However, the market lacks transparency related to artwork provenance, price-setting and commission fees. This paves the way for blockchain technology to make a critical and long-lasting impact on the industry by bringing more trust and liquidity to the art market.
Arteïa has developed an innovative, decentralized, peer-to-peer service for artists, collectors and professionals of the fine art ecosystem: a comprehensive platform to serve the needs of all the actors in the art market.
It is proud to have been able to develop partnerships and solutions with key respected actors in the sector, such as its joint venture with RAISONLINE by Cahiers d’Art, which will be the first digital catalogue solution anchored to the blockchain.
The total pool of tokens for this operation is fixed at $400 million ARTK, the soft cap is settled at $3.5 million, and the hard cap is at $15 million. Some 50 percent of the tokens will be sold during the ICO. Token prices will be fixed shortly before the presale and the main sale due to BTC and ETH volatility.
This ICO will be one of the first offerings where all five use cases described in the white paper will be running and available for token buyers at the end of the fundraising sale period when the tokens are issued.
ARTK token uses
The ARTK token will allow its owner to subscribe to and access the platform’s services directly after the ICO. It will also manage access to the provenance tracker, where artists and estates will be able to publicly and securely store the provenance of their artwork.
The five use cases that will be available for token-holders will be:
- Subscription to the cataloging solution
- Adding provenance details of artwork by the users and consulting the provenance of an artwork
- Match and allow both parties to agree on the details of a transaction in a secure and trusted environment provided by smart-contracts powered by the ARTK token
- Allow collectors to safely lend artwork to museums and exhibitions
- Create a public or private showcase to gain recognition or just share the passion
In the long run, Arteïa’s goal is to become a global platform for art market actors, with a marketplace supported by its provenance ledger, to trade artworks in fiat or cryptocurrencies. Such a platform will help the digital world of token and crypto to connect with the physical field of art.
“Co-founded by collectors and engineers, Arteïa uses the finest and latest technologies—including blockchain—to suit the needs of all the actors of the art world. Our teams have been working for three years to develop this product, which is already used by artists and galleries. More than 30,000 artworks are already onboarded,” Gellman said.
Blockchain for the highest possible level of trust, security and confidentiality
Created by collectors to meet their needs, the Arteïa team knows the extent to which the security and confidentiality of art collections are foremost. This is why Arteïa’s access is protected by two-factor authentication and allows the user to decide where the data is stored (on various hosted servers around the world or on a personal server disconnected from the internet).
The Arteïa platform also leverages blockchain technologies to develop its artwork provenance tracker, creating an immutable history of each piece. This provenance database will serve as a tool to verify the authenticity of and to establish the value of the piece. Dealing with art with a veritable digital identity will also bring higher trust in the platform. Furthermore, blockchain technologies will enable the creation of immutable digital “catalogues raisonnés” by contemporary artists, creating a complete list of all their works in a simple and secure manner.
“Arteïa’s blockchain infrastructure will allow peer-to-peer connections between art collectors allowing direct sales, and we are looking forward to implementing price predictions and trends analysis to help them make better decisions,” Zabicki said. “In this sense, Arteïa is a real use case for blockchain technologies. Offering transparency and liquidity on the market, it will allow people to use art as an investment in a rapidly changing digital age.”
