European Museum To Tokenize Art Masterpiece

The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) has teamed up with Rubey and Tokeny to become the first European museum to tokenize a masterpiece to democratize art investment. The museum aims to revolutionize the art industry by making art masterpieces available to the masses, rather than wealthy individuals.

The museum will launch its compliant ERC-3643 based security token offering on the Polygon blockchain, allowing fractional ownership of James Ensor (1860 – 1949)’s painting Carnaval de Binche, with investments starting at 150 euros.

This means the masterpiece is virtually divided into a large number of equal virtual parts or Art Security Tokens that are associated with certain financial rights to the piece of art, which is used as collateral.

The art industry has generally been dominated by very rich individuals who have the ability to buy the museum-quality art pieces. These private individuals have been the primary source of capital for museums to help expand their collections.

KMSKA is working with Rubey to tokenize the masterpiece on the blockchain to lower the investment barrier to enable everyone to become a “co-owner” of the masterpiece. This will bring together art lovers to buy a virtual share in a piece of fine art in an Art Security Tokens Offering.

The money raised in the Art Security Token Offering allows Carnaval de Binche to be purchased and ensures that the museum receives the piece on long-term loan. Carnaval de Binche painting has spent years in private collections.

“We are fully committed to engaging our visitors and token holders in our collection and operation. It is very special that anyone can become a ”co-owner” of Carnaval de Binche by James Ensor,” said Luk Lemmens, KMSKA President.

KMSKA’s Art Security Tokens, unlike Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), are backed by debt instruments, which legally fall under securities regulation and must comply with the law throughout their life cycle.

To ensure compliance, the museum is using the Rubey platform to integrate Tokeny’s tokenization APIs for issuing and managing security tokens due to its unique onchain compliance approach through permissioned ERC-3643 tokens and digital identity system ONCHAINID.

As a result, token transfers can only occur if eligibility conditions are met, moreover, ownership of tokens is guaranteed by holders’ ONCHAINIDs.

The project uses Polygon network, the Ethereum-scaling solution, to achieve cost-effective operations while preparing for cheap, fast and compliant peer-to-peer transfers post-issuance for all investors, both initial private investors and investors in public sales.

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