
Jess Houlgrave on Blockchain for the Art Market - Artnome
https://www.artnome.com/news/2018/1/29/jess-houlgrave-and-the-codex-protocol
======
cousin_it
It's trivially easy to upload some scanned provenance documents to your Google
Drive, so later you can send them to the next buyer. If that predictably and
strongly increases the sale price, why isn't everyone doing it already?

There are other startups like this. People aren't losing weight as much as
they'd like, clearly there's an unmet demand that the blockchain can meet! But
if you put the problem first, like helping people lose weight or keep track of
valuable paperwork, any solution using blockchain would be at the bottom of
the list.

~~~
ThomPete
That's actually not true IMO.

Blockchain is great as a secondhand market for things like art as it allows
the buyer and seller to both know that they have the original and it allows
for a digital art (and even assets to increase in value)

This is a real problem where a non-centralized version actually is the only
viable solution (because you can include other things than just digital art).

You don't need a specific token for it you could use a satoshi or some token
but it's definitely important if you want to see a digital art market that
allow you to have unique items. (You don't have to want that but if you do
it's definitely the only solution i can think of that would make sense)

~~~
ABCLAW
>Blockchain is great as a secondhand market for things like art as it allows
the buyer and seller to both know that they have the original and it allows
for a digital art

Does it?

Someone with a blockchain registered Rembrandt has a forged copy produced and
passes on the forged copy to you along with the registration, then years later
sells the original in another deal through another entity and has the original
verified forensically.

This doesn't do shit.

~~~
ThomPete
If you are buying a Rembrandt you are also going to get a forensic
verification. That's an edge case.

No one is talking about a perfect solution, you have fake paintings being sold
today.

This reduces the risk for fraud and helps propel a digital art industry. And
thats just for the art world.

It's fine if you don't believe it to happen, I do and so I am acting
accordingly.

------
tjwds
Jason Bailey's (artnome) other work is absolutely fantastic. If you care at
all about open access data, art history done digitally, or art in general,
definitely give him a follow.

Here's a FiveThirtyEight article about him:
[https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/one-art-lovers-
crusade-...](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/one-art-lovers-crusade-to-
catalog-the-world/)

------
ThomPete
If you think about it the art industry is bitcoin in the real world.

I find blockchain especially interesting for digital and interactive art
installations.

~~~
matt4077
The art market certainly has aspects best described as a "Keynesian Beauty
Contest"[0], and so do Cryptocurrencies.

But while the latter is almost pure "beauty contest", art retains a far
stronger connection to the real world: art buyers are very rarely motivated by
speculation alone. And even if they want to brag about the $X0,000,000
painting they bought, it helps if they actually like it.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest)

~~~
ThomPete
The art world (the selling and reselling of art) is purely history +
speculative and most of it IMO is definitely motivated by speculation.

A piece of art can go from 20USD to 20.000USD in no time.

My wife works in the auction industry so at least from having followed the
world through her it would say it's mostly speculative.

I think there was even an article recently about how manipulated the art world
is.

------
tim333
There are a few companies trying to to art and blockchain stuff.
[http://www.looklateral.io/](http://www.looklateral.io/) and
[https://www.artcoinfund.com/](https://www.artcoinfund.com/) are a couple.

------
tomasien
Jess is one of the smartest people I've met in the space.

