Interesting initiative by American and Swiss art and tech companies was announced recently. Paddle8 which is an American online art auctioneer and The Native- a Swiss tech company announced about launching art authentication service which is based on blockchain. The announcement was reported by Cointelegraph auf Deutsch, which also stated that Paddle8 will be offering a digital certificate (P8Pass) for each of the thousands of artworks that were sold online. Later on this information will be encoded on the Bitcoin blockchain.
P8Pass is a digital certificate which includes the data which is continuously encoded onto a blockchain. The system will be linked to digital directories, information from museum catalogs, and specialized literature, as confirmed in the announcement. Every artwork that is purchased on Paddle8 will get a certificate which will grant a direct access to ownership history and authorship information to the users. The announcement also stated that the service was developed in collaboration with one of the Native’s minority investments, US tech company Verisart.
With the new service, the buyers will have the opportunity to check digital certificates in real-time instead of relying on a single certificate from the previous owner. In addition, the new system provides high level of safety and transparency as once the data is recorded on the Bitcoin blockchain it cannot be modified without making the change visible to all the users.
Paddle8 strategic advisor, Tyler Winklevoss commented on the solution stating that they see the system’s application to the art market which is just the beginning of “democratization and upending of the status quo”.
This initiative is not the first collaboration between Paddle8 and The Native. The two companies partnered in January this year as the Swiss company invested in Paddle8. Back then Paddle8’s parent company went bankrupt and after the investment the two companies began a project to facilitate the purchase of art with cryptocurrencies.
