Artifacts’ Santiago Arnaiz talks about democratizing access to art with NFTs

by James · May 27, 2023

In 2017, Salvator Mundi, a painting by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, sold for a record $450 million. For most, this astronomical price is out of their reach. But what if you could buy a fraction of a painting by Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso or Vincent van Gogh? Artifact leverages blockchain technology to democratize art.

“Artifract is a pioneering NFT company in the Philippines, but with global partners,” Chief Business Officer Santiago Arnaiz told CoinGeek Backstage. “We work with artists, museums and collectors to stamp art into NFTs and then fractionalize it and turn them into limited collections that collectors can buy.”

Arnaiz believes fractionalizing art through NFTs (non-fungible tokens) is the best way to democratize access to some of the finest paintings in the world.

“Not everyone can afford one [Juvenal Garrit] Sansó, but many people can afford a fractional artwork.”

Artifact has focused on the Philippines and it is paying dividends as the country continues to be a global leader in NFTs and digital assets. The Philippines’ tech-savvy nature has extended to the artists, and Arnaiz says there is growing interest in digitizing art, especially through NFTs.

Artifact has partnered with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to use NFTs for the conservation of cultural and biological diversity. The partnership targets endangered species indigenous to the Philippines. Artifact will mint NFTs inspired by these species and sell them, with the proceeds going to the conservation of these animals. The number of NFTs sold for each species will be equal to the number of animals remaining.

“We are very happy and proud of this initiative,” he said.

Art has been one of the industries blockchain has disrupted. Last year, a painting by world-famous French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir and its digital twin went on sale on Buzzmint, a BSV-powered NFT and tokenization platform.

As co-founder Michat Schistowski explained at the time, the owners of the Renoir painting chose BSV for its “immutable data storage that allows us to connect the physical painting to a digital twin for metadata without question and a contractless system that makes our platform globally unhackable, which is critical because we consider transactions in millions of dollars.”

See: Using blockchain technology for data integrity

New to Bitcoin? Check out CoinGeeks Bitcoin for beginners section, the ultimate resource guide for learning more about Bitcoin – as originally envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto – and blockchain.