How FRESCO Can Expand the $70 billion Art market Exponentially
Published in
6 min readMay 23, 2018
Explain FRESCO in 5 minutes
People have been asking about FRESCO and how can we innovate the art world with blockchain. If you are not in the mood for the 100-page whitepaper, we hope this will help you out.
Overview
(1) About FRESCO
(2) Art World Overview
(3) FRES Trust: Art Trust Value Measurement System
(4) FRES Trust & Elastos
(5) FRES Edition: Prints & Multiples on Blockchain
(6) FRES Edition & Elastos
(7) The World’s First ICD by FRESCO
(8) FRESCO Advantage
(1) About FRESCO
FRESCO is the world’s first blockchain art asset network.
Through blockchain technology and Elastos platform, FRESCO enables liquidation, promotion, and provenance of artworks at a global scale.
FRESCO has two main components, FRES Trust and FRES Edition. FRES Trust is a blockchain-based art value measurement system. FRES Edition is a digital asset offering system for the owner of an artwork to issue multiple editions of artworks on blockchain.
(2) Art World Overview
Despite being around for thousands of years, the art market’s yearly transaction is less than 10% of the real estate yearly transaction, and less than 0.1% of the stock investment yearly transaction.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/CM.MKT.TRAD.CD
https://therealdeal.com/la/2018/01/25/la-climbs-to-no-2-in-global-real-estate-investment-behind-london-jll/
https://www.artbasel.com/news/global-art-market-reaches-usd-63-7-billion-in-2017--with-dealers-taking-the-lion-s-share
(2–1) Art World Problem #1: Unclear Provenance
Provenance in the art world refers to the chronological documentation of the ownership of an artwork. Though an essential aspect for art transactions, appraisal, and art banking, it is often incomplete and inaccurate.
Even till today, galleries & auction houses just offer a piece of paper or a line of text on website as the provenance for an artwork.
A more trustworthy provenance system is desperately needed.
(2–2) Art World Problem #2: Centralized Promotion
Currently, an artist needs to have support of a renowned art dealer or gallery in order to achieve the commercial success to carry over to museum exhibitions and significance in the art world.
However, the large dealers & galleries can only promote a few artists per year, leaving the majority of artists unable to make a living.
https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/christopher-wool-b-1955-apocalypse-now-5739095-details.aspx
(2–3) Art World Problem #3: Lack of Liquidation
After buying an artwork from the primary (gallery, private deal) or secondary market (auction house), it’s an arduous process to liquidate one’s artwork into cash, because art is based upon negotiation, and negotiation will inevitably drag on for a while.
How can we solve the problem of centralized promotion, create anonymous yet transparent provenance, and help liquidate art at a global scale and in the process expand the art population?
(3) FRES Trust
FRES Trust reflects the total value of trust allocated to an artwork by users on FRESCO, and it is also the total value of FRES Edition of this artwork.
FRES Trust is publicly visible and anonymous in identity. The distribution of the FRES Trust is irrevocable and adds a unique index of trust value to the artwork. It reflects the comprehensive academic and market value of the artwork in the intricate art environment.
Due to the various difficulties to directly measure the value of art, as well as the price opacity and the overly-concentrated pricing power of top-level players, the art market tends to intimidate new investors and collectors, creating a social barrier to entry.
On the contrary, FRES Trust provides a decentralized promotional channel for people to directly support artworks and artists they love.
(3–1) FRES Trust Examples
From eastern commentaries on paintings and western bible treasure binding. Adding value to artworks has been happening for centuries in the art world.
FRES Trust enables this value addition process on blockchain, using a clear & easy-to-understand value reference to expand the art market globally.
(4) FRES Trust & ELASTOS
Elastos allows issuance of digital asset, also has the provenance seeking aspect of blockchain. This aligns perfectly with FRES Trust.
Moreover, FRES Trust reflects the total value of FRES Edition of an artwork, and FRES Edition is solely based on Elastos.
FRES Trust using a POS (Proof-of-stake) method to create a irrevocable process to reflect & compare the intricate value of art on blockchain,
The circulation of tokens in FRES Trust will be achieved by FRES Edition.
(5) FRES Edition
FRES Edition is a digital-asset-offering system for the owner of an artwork to issue multiple editions of blockchain certificates. Each FRES Edition holder can gain profits from the appreciation of that edition when the FRES Trust of the original artwork increases.
Each artwork on FRESCO can release FRES Edition successfully only once, and the number of FRES Edition is fixed for one artwork. FRES Edition is the prints & multiples for the digital era.
FRES Edition owners can trade FRES Editions at a real-time price instantly with other users on platform.
Once the transactions of FRES Edition reach a significant number, FRESCO will release FRESCO Edition Exchange (FEE), enabling option & future trading of artwork’s FRES Edition.FRES Edition can be presented in the real world with 2D/3D printing.
The displayed medium will have a clear and readable digital copyright address displayed by the QR code, this will achieve the visual display of digital copyright.
(5–1) FRES Edition Examples
It is well known for a unique artwork to have limited edition prints & multiples, a lot of them are made by the world-renowned artists.
One of the most obvious examples is Andy Warhol.
His acrylic on canvas gets sold for $4 million plus, where his limited edition silkscreen gets sold for $10k or even lower.
Same goes for any artist, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Pablo Picasso, your new art school graduates, you name it.
https://www.swanngalleries.com/news/2014/09/what-is-an-after-print/
https://www.phillips.com/detail/JEAN-MICHEL-BASQUIAT/NY010318/5?fromSearch=basquiat&searchPage=1
https://www.phillips.com/detail/AFTER-JEAN-MICHEL-BASQUIAT/UK030218/39?fromSearch=basquiat&searchPage=1
(6) FRES Edition & ELASTOS
Elastos allows digital assets can be issued into multiple editions and traded. This is the technical foundation of FRES Edition.
Through FRES Edition, art collecting will not stop in the physical world, but rather extend towards prints and multiples of artworks on blockchain, this will create exponential growth for art market without influencing the transaction of physical artwork.
This will be revolutionary for museums, changing the engagement model between from visitors & exhibitor, to participants & host.
(7) The World’s First ICD
FRESCO is doing the world’s first ICD (Initial Coin Distribution), abandoning the murky ICO (Initial Coin Offering) model by distributing 300 million FRESCO tokens to its global community for free.
If passing the 100 question test on art, he or she will receive 2,000 FRESCO tokens. Through this process, FRESCO will educate around 140,000 people globally about art within 1–2 month, even the world’s leading art institutions have never completed this feat.
FRESCO ICD: http://fresco.work/icd
FRESCO Whitepaper: http://fresco.work/whitepaper
FRESCO Twitter: https://twitter.com/fresco_network
FRESCO Telegram Community Talk: https://t.me/fresco_community_talk
FRESCO Telegram Announcement Channel: https://t.me/fresco_network
