Artsted.com will be the first platform to offer its users — visual artists without specific blockchain knowledge — the possibility of minting authenticated NFTs of their works, creating digital editions and artist collectibles.

The online contemporary art marketplace launched in 2020, offers a wide range of  artworks, ranging from paintings, sculptures, and photography. With a strong emphasis on innovative technologies and a focus on providing estimates to the emerging artist’s markets based on the proprietary Artificial Intelligence engine, Artsted is now venturing into the NFT realm.

Ever since the project’s inception, the Artsted founder Maryna Rybakova has cultivated a commitment to cutting-edge technologies, with a vision where the marketplace becomes a one-stop-shop to browse and collect both physical and digital artwork — all at the speed of one click. The new NFT Portal on the Artsted platform also allows artists to create digital twins of physical works, as well as upload digitally-native artwork, such as digital images, 3D objects, videos, and more.

With a simple and intuitive interface, any verified creator on the platform will be able to give digital life to their works in an easy, safe, and traceable way. The goal is to ensure that all users — both artists and collectors — can make their first steps in the NFT and blockchain ecosystem following an intuitive and easily navigable interface.

The curatorial approach

One of the primary missions of the Artsted project is to approach the world of digital art collecting with a defined curatorial and conceptual approach. Pioneering a transition from the physical contemporary art world to the meta one, Artsted is focusing primarily on the qualitative aspect of artworks and artist profiles, bringing traditional expertise and order to this ever-changing environment in a clear and transparent manner.

Artsted.com, also has a dedicated editorial section on its platform that pays a lot of attention to educating the users on aspects related to the NFT world with dedicated series. Not only does it endeavor to explain its problems but also to clarify the more complex dynamics this technological change brings about in the art market.

Why Artsted.com is different
Unlike most NFT marketplaces, the team behind Artsted has deep-rooted knowledge about the contemporary art market, as well as artistic and curatorial expertise that is required to run a team like this. Artsted, therefore, wants to embrace the traditional approach to collecting but make the process more transparent. It does so by introducing the innovation of blockchain-based tools that allow artists to embrace the opportunity to join a new market with zero emissions.

With a unique roster of 500 active users on the platform, Artsted is the first to provide a simple and immediate interface where the artist — even without any specific digital competences — can create a NFT without losing the chance to enter this new market. For this reason, the Artsted minting service is geared towards artists of all backgrounds and requires no prior blockchain knowledge to use.

“NFTs are just such a transformative phenomenon, a potential revolution in the history of art and its dissemination into the collective stream of consciousness, and commerce! This show will attempt to do what no one has done before: FOCUS ON THE ART — art from a wide, diverse universe of talent from all walks of life”.

Curator and journalist, Kenny Schachter

“During the course of my professional career I have been lucky to get involved with the blockchain technology and digital art scene, which I followed closely starting from 2016. In 2019 I spoke at a panel at the pioneering digital art fair CADAF in Miami, during the Art Basel week, where I connected with the industry professionals who are now considered the crypto art evangelists: Serena Tabacchi, Elena Zavelev, Fanny Lakoubay, Kate Vass and a number of digital artists such as Federico Clapis, who were trailblazing the space back in the day. Years later, in 2020 and in 2021 when the NFTs took over the media space worldwide with surging prices and became the it-phenomenon that is on everyone’s mind — my experience proved more relevant than ever.

It is safe to say that the art world has been truly shaken by the emergence of NFTs, with so many artists venturing into this new media and discovering not only a new type of independence from the dealer and gallerist, but also benefiting from the Smart-contract-embedded Resale royalties – a concept which had long been an unattainable dream for so many creators.

At Artsted we have always been at the forefront of technological innovation, and implemented it to the benefit of artists and collectors, creating tools such as our AI-based Analytics engine.

In recent years, we carefully studied the NFT marketplaces and the crypto art scene in general, only to find out that most digital creations lacked the curated and conceptual approach. The natural decision was to provide the existing Artsted roster of contemporary ultra-emerging visual artists with easy-to-use intuitive tools that they can then use to create NFTs that stem from their usual research. This way, we hope to expand the digital art scene beyond the “pixelated punk” NFT stereotype, and populate it with the digital work created by professional visual artists —  with an emphasis on its artistic, aesthetic and conceptual value.”  

Maryna Rybakova, the founder artsted.com

“I think this is the kind of technology that will transform the way emerging artists experience the art world; platforms like Artsted will shape the future of the art market.”

Edvige Cecconi-Meloni, artist and artsted.com user.

The growing popularity of NFTs has led to an almost total elimination of entry barriers to the digital art ecosystem. This has led to a drastic change, making consuming and trading art assets available to an unprecedentedly wide audience. Artsted’s Multichain, in collaboration with Polkadot and Solana, will make it possible to mint NFTs authenticated by a digital signature produced by Artsted and its compliance partner GetID to guarantee the authenticity and legitimate provenance of the works.

In this context Artsted becomes a reliable intermediary that will guarantee users complete transparency but at the same time facilitate the operations and understanding of the complex blockchain technology. In a system where the key word is “decentralization”, the platform brings a unique curatorial approach and attention that helps pave a comfortable way for artists into the metaverse — fostering a transition from a predominantly physical to a hybrid art trading system, for both creators and collectors.

The Artsted NFT feature will allow artists to create authenticated digital work securely and easily, based on the two principles:

Authentication

1. In the first phase, the artists will have to select the NFT Portal from the User Dashboard, submit the NFT content for a review of the originality of the work attributed to the token, as well as undergo a Digital signature procedure.

Digital Signature

• Once the work has been approved, the artist will be able to complete the creation of the NFT through a second authentication process. This step will verify their identity — creating a digital signature that will be permanently associated with the NFT. Once created, the NFT can be purchased with both crypto and fiat currency, and one can choose whether to keep their purchase on the platform, which offers a safe and reliable system, or in their personal wallet. Collectors will therefore be able to purchase NFTs even without being in possession of a crypto-wallet or having prior experience with blockchain technology.

Artsted Parachain, Database and AI Functionality:

The new Artsted feature will be in collaboration with Polkadot, a blockchain based on the proof-of-stake system. At first, the minting of the tokens will take place on the Polkadot blockchain — but the creation of an autonomous blockchain, a personalized register of all transactions, the Artsed Parachain, is in the works.

The NFTs created on these systems will be permanently associated and verifiable in a database that will allow investors, collectors and curators to verify the originality and origin of the works.

In light of the recent problems that have emerged in the NFT world on the authenticity and traceability of works, Artsted intends to offer an exclusive service of AI optimized market Analytics for the first time in the world of digital art — another element that encourages collectors and investors to enter the NFT world.

The new features will be just one of the many steps towards a series of advanced tools for digital collecting: Artsted Parachain; Artsted Web3 wallet; new NFT features such as dynamic NFTs and metaverse displays (not only for NFT art but also traditional).

The eco-friendly approach

The choice of Polkadot and Solana as partners was also guided by Artsted’s attention to the ecological issues that accompany the new way of creating and exchanging digital art. On most popular NFT blockchains that use Ethereum,  the “record” of each token in the decentralized register takes place, thanks to a series of proof-of-work confirmation algorithms that also produce significant CO2 emissions. With the explosion in popularity of NFTs, these issues have reached worrying levels, but there are other blockchain technologies that  offer alternative methods to “proof-of-work”, which involve considerably lower emissions.

The Polkadot and Solana blockchains are based on the “proof-of-stake” mechanism, which fall in that category. Less harmful to the environment, and also able to connect and make interoperable multiple blockchains come together into a single universal network — Artsted will therefore offer its users the opportunity to create green and sustainable NFTs, with a keen eye towards new technologies, fostering sustainability in the digital art realm.

About Artsted

Artsted.com is a global online art marketplace, working on encouraging transparent and meaningful connections between artists and art collectors. Based on an innovative proprietary algorithm, Artsted strives to put a halt to confusion, price-fixing and information asymmetries in the art market. As a result of this framework, the project positions itself in the niche of trusted market insight, which in turn brings the attention of a new generation of art collectors interested in affordable investment opportunities and looking to build future-proof collections that hold value.

Artsted’s mission is to nurture emerging creators’ careers, allowing them to operate as self-auditors as they make their way up the global art market. It wants to help a new generation of art collectors make use of unprecedented tools that display transparent price analytics and market insights into the emerging creators’ work. Artsted’s focus on emerging artists is because the founders are convinced that the market disruption can only happen in a bottom-up movement, where a unified self-audit standard is set for all artists pursuing a professional career. It starts with creating a publicly available and comprehensive set of analytics connected to artwork evaluations. The system Artsted platform is using is based on non-transactional data analytics and charts connected to artists’ CV entries, processed using a proprietary algorithm. Once an artist joins the Artsted platform, they are immediately able to create a digital track record that later develops over time to reflect their career performance & progress. At the same time, this tool also benefits collectors, as they are provided with instant analytics and evaluations about the artists, including real-time market updates.

In addition, the platform provides targeted advertisements to favor creators’ visibility and sales. The best part is that all these services are free for the artists. The company behind the project — a UK-based Artisfact ltd has been backed by a number of angel investors and venture capitalists, among which is the Atomind Group.