As of December 28th 2018, TheArtToken (TAT) has raised more than $11 million on Swarm’s platform. TAT represents fractional ownership of valuable artwork and exemplifies one of the many emerging asset classes of blockchain technology’s latest real-world implementation: security tokens.

How TheArtToken (TAT) Represents the Ownership of Fine Art

TAT’s initial offering commenced on December 4th 2018 and has already surpassed its first funding goal of $4 million, raising more than $11 million to date.

The token represents fractional ownership of Post War and Contemporary Art. The physical works of art will be stored and insured in a Swiss-bonded warehouse which is secured by the Swiss government.

The value of the art collection grows not just through additional investments, but with the pure annual increase of the art’s value, which saw an increase of +14.31% in 2017. In fact, art-as-an-investment has yielded some of the highest dividends when compared to traditional asset classes with a reported average ROI of 10.85% per year.

The artwork represented through TAT can ultimately either be traded or redeemed for physical artwork.

The tokenization of fine art comes with the many benefits offered through the integration of distributed ledger technology— a secure and immutable method of maintaining ownership claims— with traditional financial securities.

The Benefits of Tokenized Art Explained Simply

Fractional ownership, as seen through TAT, features significant advantages when compared to traditional methods of art ownership. For example, it decreases investor barriers to access, and simultaneously increases the pool of eligible investors for businesses that wish to raise capital.

In this sense, enterprises that want to raise capital can circumvent the need for a few liquid investors by tokenizing their asset and creating its digital representation, which can then be sold and traded on regulated security token trading platforms.

Currently, OpenFinance Network is the only US-regulated security token trading platform which is live and fully operational. tZERO aims to reach the same status in Q1 of 2019.

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TAT isn’t the only digital representation of art ownership. Even a piece by Picasso has been tokenized on Ethereum. For more on the benefits offered through tokenization, be sure to check out our comprehensive security token guide.

As 2018 comes to a close, security tokens are experiencing a rapidly increasing rate of implementation. Yet still, many claim that 2019 will be the year when security tokens actualize the level of implementation embedded in their highly anticipated potential.

What do you think of tokenized art? Will this asset class be one of the first to peak during the impending surge of security tokens? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Image courtesy of TheArtToken.