Art Tokenization

Supporting art tokenization in the NPC RWA 2.0 ecosystem enables anyone to easily own and trade physical collectibles on the blockchain, bringing greater transparency, liquidity, and a powerful new form of ownership to collectors.

NPC stores physical collectibles (primarily graded trading cards) in a secure vault, creates 3D representations of these assets, and casts them on the blockchain. NPC works with Hasenkam to store physical collectibles in a secure vault and is responsible for handling and transporting the collectibles with the utmost care. NPC is responsible for creating 3D representations of these assets and casting them on the blockchain, so that users can buy, sell, and collect them. Once tokenized and vaulted, collectibles can be bought and sold instantly around the world without having to move them every time, unlocking new levels of liquidity for the collectibles market.

NPC's art tokenization architecture consists of three parts: smart contracts that handle the NFT itself, a web front-end for users to cast NFTs, and a centralized back-end that handles inventory management and authorizes the casting of NFTs representing that inventory. While the minting experience feels familiar, behind the scenes, NPC’s backend generates a unique tokenization request and passes it to a smart contract to authorize each minting. This guarantees that each artwork’s NFT is backed 1:1 by the physical asset.

In terms of minting contracts, a single registry can use one or more minting contracts to allow users to mint tokens. These contracts can be standard minting contracts that handle pre-sales, public sales, wallet restrictions, or other on-chain permission logic, or they can leverage NPC’s oracles to require minting approval signatures. While a single registry provides a clear place to find all of a brand’s NFTs, the ability to use multiple minting contracts enables each minting to have a unique user experience.

Advantages of NPC’s on-chain artwork tokenization:

• Instant liquidity: There is inherent friction and risk in selling collectibles. The listing, packaging, and shipping processes are time-consuming and prone to problems. Once tokenized and stored in a vault, collectibles can be instantly bought and sold around the world without having to move them every time, unlocking new levels of liquidity for the collectibles market.

• Transparency: Having all the details of each transaction recorded on-chain can increase transparency into the prior ownership and pricing of collectibles. Collectors value having reliable provenance, and with blockchain, they can easily access all past owners and activity for a particular collectible.

• Expanded network of buyers: With blockchain, sellers can reach more buyers in one place with credit card and cryptocurrency payments.

• Lower fees: Our on-chain approach allows us to keep seller fees lower than traditional Web2 markets, while users also benefit from the fact that vault transactions are exempt from sales tax.

• Ability to discover and bid: Many collectibles are stored in basements and closets, hidden from the world unless the seller decides to list them. On-chain collectibles allow collectors to discover and bid at any time — even those that are not actively listed! This also benefits sellers because they can simply accept an offer and get paid immediately without having to list.