Over the last few years a number of regulators have voiced their concerns about transparency, fraud, money-laundering, and other financial crime vulnerabilities of the art industry. New regulatory constraints have been taking effect, while the online art markets have proved to be a viable alternative to traditional offline markets.

The growth in sales among online businesses such as Artsy, 1stDibs and Saatchi Art shows that people are becoming increasingly comfortable buying and selling art online. With more stringent compliance requirements and a growing industry moving towards digital marketplaces,

“the need for more robust art provenance solutions is imperative to tackle potential regulatory gaps.”

Stamped by multiple industry experts

Art provenance is a key component for assessing the authenticity, valuation and ownership of an artwork. The capacity to successfully perform accurate provenance is highly dependent on the existence of solid, documented evidence which proves its ownership, owner identity and helps to establish that the artwork has not been altered and is not a forgery or a stolen object. This complex and expensive validation process involves multiple market participants.

For instance, an artwork may require the provenance history, certificate of insurance, certificate of authenticity, exhibition catalogues, restoration history, and documented evidence that screening against Art Loss and Interpol Art databases has been done.

In this context of multiple participants generating an artwork provenance case is where blockchain features can truly shine. Maecenas is a decentralised art gallery whose blockchain-based platform not only allows investors, collectors and owners to exchange shares in paintings and sculptures, it also provides cryptographically secure provenance records stamped by multiple industry experts. These permanent records supporting the authenticity and ownership of artworks will confer value to the object and remove concerns around fraud and transparency.

Cultural paradigm shift

Almost nine years after the birth of Bitcoin, many believe that blockchain seems more like a cultural paradigm shift than just technology. In our partnership conversations with galleries, collectors and investors,

it is clear that decentralization will enable collaboration among the industry art experts. It will also help compliance with national and international applicable legal requirements, policies and procedures.

Maecenas will be at the heart of this collaboration. Join Maecenas in helping free the art world from fraud.

Visit maecenas.co to find out more about the project.

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