The art world has always been a tough place to crack. Originally an artist would rely on a gallery to sell their work and in most cases it wouldn't depend on the artists quality of work, but more who the artist was in the first place as to whether the gallery would take them on. The customers, gallery owners and critics all belonged to an elite circle and you needed to know someone with a way in.
There's been times where this has been disrupted!
The gatherings of the impressionist movement brought new art and style and a lot of the artists names we recognise today to our attention. They forced change.
The internet brought about the ability for artists to share their art with the world themselves, rather than relying on a gallery in their area. Self marketing artist started to thrive by cutting out the middle men galleries and critics and simply selling their art direct to customers who like their work.
Blockchain now sets to disrupt the art world even more.
FRESCO (http://Fresco.work) has come along with bold plans.
Firstly they will utilise the blockchain for it's most simple feature. A ledger. This will record provenance details of artwork. Their ERC-20 token will be FRES (Fres Cash).
But what makes Fresco stand out will be their FRES Trust platform. Here, artists, galleries, curators, critics museums and anyone else involved in the Freso Platform can allocate their FRES Cash to a piece of artwork to increase it's FRES Trust status. The higher the FRES Trust value, the more potential value the artwork has.
As artwork is bought (including limited edition prints from the original) there is more FRES Trust added to the artwork. All these details are stored on the decentralized blockchain.
Undesirable opaqueness and centralization will be undermined by a revolutionary value measurement system—Art Trust Value, or FRES Trust. FRES Trust encourages users to create an efficient and intuitive art ecosystem, where users have the incentive to engage and contribute, thereby generating a comprehensive system of digital provenance and solving other problems.
The FRES Trust allocated to a piece of art is publicly visible but anonymous in identity. FRES Trust is also irrevocable meaning once trust is added to art, it cannot be removed afterwards, thus eliminating the possibility of building false trust.
Traditionally, to determine the value of an artwork, you should either have experience in art world or contact art appraisal and scholars. Mostly market and major galleries’ and auction houses’ promotional power dictates an artwork’s importance and potential value. In FRESCO, we are democratizing this promotional power to everyone.
FRES Edition - Many pieces of art have been digitally copied to provide a cheaper alternative to the original and sold as limited edition prints (The maximum number of prints are limited to help keep value in the print also). With FRES Edition, limited edition prints are available also from the original piece and the blockchain holds FRES Trust data on these pieces also.
If the original piece of art is subsequently sold at a higher price, then automatically increases in value also.
Example. An original piece is priced at 80,000 FRES.
100 editions are made available at a price of 800 FRES (80,000/100 = 800)
The original piece is sold on for 90,000 FRES
Now the 100 edition prints are worth 900 FRES (90,000/100 = 900)
As the increase in FRES Trust grows on the art, all the editions will also benefit from that increase too.
Previously, this information has been difficult to obtain and lots of research would be needed to find out previous and subsequent sale prices. With the blockchain, all this information is not only easily available but is automatically updated on the Fresco database.
Now, when you search for art on the Fresco database, it's price is clear and the trust put behind that price is also clear.
This should help art investors also as the prices of art should consistently grow, allowing people to invest in art without the costly need for intermediate specialists.
With Fresco, artists can sell their art directly and each transaction helps them grow through allocation of FRES Trust, again without the need for costly intermediaries to validate a piece of art as "worthy". This is often the barrier for many striving artists who simply cannot break into the elite world of art.
Fresco ICD - Fresco are releasing their FRES coins differently to most. Many companies run an ICO (Initial Coin Offering) to raise funds to build their company. Fresco have decided to run an ICD (Initial Coin Distribution) which operates on a POW system much like the original way of mining Bitcoin.
Instead of using computing power, Fresco have released a 100 question quiz. Get 80 or more right and you will earn 2000 free FRES tokens which will be sent to your ERC-20 wallet.
The first round of questions was the easiest (Much like early days of mining bitcoin was easy) but as time passes the questions are set to become harder and harder (again, much like mining bitcoin has become harder). This will see that the distributed tokens have been earned and hence will have value.
One of Fresco's other goals are to educate 140,000 in art, and by doing this quiz, you will find yourself having to learn something about the art world. Many of the questions will require you to research the internet for the answers. Fresco state that it is an "open book" test and encourage you to use Google to research the answers.
So, the quiz is only open for the first 140,000 people to take part!
I have a small background in art and found many of the questions difficult. But also I found the researching to be quite fascinating! It took me about 3 hours to complete and eventually I passed with 87/100 (with some silly mistakes in their too!)
To take part (remember if you delay it gets harder!) head to http://fresco.work/ICD
Make sure you have your ERC-20 wallet address (Like My Ether Wallet) ready and have a twitter hande, Telegram handle and Instagram handle to use. You will be required to re-tweet one of their posts.
Also remember - you should not be asked for your private keys and YOU SHOULD NEVER SHARE ANY PRIVATE KEYS.
There's some big things to come from this platform and I'm looking forward to it being released to benefit many artists around the world!
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