Art for the Next 100 Years

Kanon officially releases key details of the K21 ERC20 token and related tokenomics

Published in

Kanon Log

6 min readMar 21, 2021

IMPORTANT: This post is for information purposes only. Please do not take any action until you have fully read and understood all the materials contained and linked to in this post. If in doubt, do not take any action. While we have made every attempt to ensure that the information contained in this post is accurate, we are not responsible for any errors or omissions, or for the results obtained from the use of this information.

Key material & information

→ Official website of the K21 Collection: https://k21.kanon.art
→ K21 Press Release: https://docsend.com/view/ukxh9eqentdfas6i

→ K21 Fixed Supply: 21 million tokens
→ K21 ERC20 Contract: https://etherscan.io/token/0xb9d99c33ea2d86ec5ec6b8a4dd816ebba64404af
→ K21 Genesis LP Pool (to be migrated to Uniswap post-launch) : https://balancer.exchange/#/swap/ether/0xB9d99C33eA2d86EC5eC6b8A4dD816EBBA64404AF
→ K21 SAFE: https://gnosis-safe.io/app/#/safes/0x32EEA10639B92c71846edCC8D3415Cf6eff0645D/balances
→ K21 Vault: TBA
→ K21 Buyout Contract: TBA

IMPORTANT NOTICE: There is only ONE official K21 token and it is the token linked to above. Please carefully check which token you are interacting with to avoid falling victim to nefarious impersonators.

The K21 Collection

K21 is a closed-end art vault that provides liquid exposure to a curated collection of 21 unique and original NFT artworks by a diverse roster of influential and pioneering contemporary, digital, and cryptonative artists.

Engineered for composability, durability, and equity, K21 establishes a new protocol for art.

The Artists

The K21 vault is a collection of firsts: the first NFTs minted by established and emerging art world luminaries and the first iterations of trailblazing experiments in digital art. The collection has been assembled by an anonymous team of cryptoart originators and curators with over 50 years of collective experience leading contemporary art and digital programs at some of the most renowned cultural institutions in the world.

17 artists already joined the K21 collection.

Participating artists: Alex Mordvintsev, COOL 3D WORLD, David OReilly, Filip Hodas, Hank Willis Thomas & the Wide Awakes, Jenna Sutela, Liam Gillick, Pak, Paul Chan, Precious Okoyomon, Rachel Rose, Raoul Marks, Rebecca Allen, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Simon Denny, Suzanne Treister, Terrell Villiers, +4 TBA.

As artists complete their respective works, Kanon will be assisting them in minting the artworks as NFTs and will transfer the NFT tokens into the K21 Collection Safe. More details on the Safe, the Vault, and the Buyout Contract below.

Please visit https://k21.kanon.art for more information.

The K21 Token

The K21 ERC-20 token allows anyone to be a part of this decisive moment in art and technology. There will only ever be 21 million K21 tokens, each representing partial ownership of the vault collection.

K21 is not a governance token but it does carry the right to vote against a buyout of the entire vault through a bid function in a dedicated smart contract.

Token holders will be able to veto the bid with a 21% consensus. If they don’t, each token holder will receive a pro-rata share of the proceeds and the 21 NFTs will be released to the successful bidder.

Uses of Token Proceeds

More than half of the token supply was issued to purchase artworks and support social causes.

Just over 21% of the tokens will be widely distributed to the community through various mechanisms including mining programs and high initial K21 / ETH ratio locked liquidity pools.

The K21 Collection was not a trivial production. At least 17 people were directly involved in its production, in addition to the artists of the 21 artworks, many of whom have teams behind them as well.

In total, collaborators will receive 15% of the K21 token supply. None of the collaborators received cash compensation.

The Sources

The production of the K21 Collection was funded through the private sale of K21 tokens to sophisticated private and institutional purchasers.

Purchasers of the token included Cluster Capital, Collider Ventures, Compute Ventures, Divergence Ventures, Mechanism Capital, and Nascent, in addition to a number of private individuals.

Collectively, private and institutional purchasers acquired 61% of the token supply at a purchase price per token of approximately 12.4c. The remaining 39% of tokens were granted to the parties noted in the sections above.

Vesting

Artists, collaborators, and private and institutional purchasers are all subject to a 90-day linear vesting schedule, with 10% of their token allocation vesting on launch.

Private and institutional purchasers will receive ETH <> K21 Uniswap LP tokens (LP tokens) which will be set at an initial USD equivalent price of 12.4c per K21 token, the same price offered to private and institutional purchasers. These LP tokens are locked for 12 months, after which they will vest linearly over 12 months. This LP token structure guarantees liquidity equivalent to approximately 12% of the initial supply.

Tokens destined for philanthropic causes, selected by each of the artists, will be fully liquid at launch. Tokens reserved for mining and community incentives will also be fully liquid at launch.

The K21 Vault and Buyout Contracts

As artists complete their works and mint their NFTs, they will transfer them to the K21 Safe. This is a Gnosis safe with a 2/3 signature set up, which is subject to change. The K21 Safe will act as temporary storage for the artworks while Kanon completes the development of the K21 Vault Contract and the K21 Buyout Contract. On completion of these contracts, Kanon will transfer the 21 artworks into the K21 Vault.

The K21 Vault Contract will be a close-end vault. Once the last artwork is contributed, the Vault will be sealed. Kanon will irrevocably assign the control of the K21 Vault to the K21 Buyout Contract. Any potential purchaser can contribute funds equivalent to $21 million into the Buyout Contract and trigger an auction.

Token holders will be able to veto the bid with a 21% consensus. Should token holders veto the offer, the trigger price of $21 million will be increased by 7%. If they don’t, K21 token holders will receive a pro-rata share of the proceeds and the 21 NFTs will be released to the successful bidder. Kanon expects to complete the development and audit of these contracts in the next 90 days.

Please note that some of the details above might change during the development process.

About Kanon

Kanon builds protocols for the art of the next 100 years.

Aligning the incentives of artists and investors to bring pivotal works on-chain, Kanon recasts patronage, philanthropy, curation, and custodianship in novel arrangements for mutual benefit at the contract level.

Kanon is composed of leading experts from multiple disciplines, ranging from curators with decades-long museum experience to successful crypto entrepreneurs, blockchain engineers, full-stack developers, designers, lawyers, and MarCom experts.

K21 is the first project of Kanon.