Last summer I published Cryptographic Hashing and Why Your Tokenized Art Collection is Worthless Without It and it generated some meaningful discussions both on the article and accompanying tweet thread. (I highly recommend you read it before continuing here but in case you don't the TL;DR is cryptographic hashes allow collectors to easily prove the provenance of their artwork, potentially years after the minting platform or image hosting provider has gone offline)‍

The topic has recently resurfaced and I felt it necessary to revisit and summarize how various tokenized art platforms currently manage art permanence and provenance.

Before diving in, let's define permanence for art: I see art permanence falling under three categories depending on the level of maintenance required to achieve it: “Low”, “Medium, and “High”.

• Low maintenance art includes hard, durable mediums such as marble or stone carvings. These creations will for the most part last for centuries with a bare minimum of upkeep but have certain restrictions.
• Medium maintenance art includes most mediums used in contemporary times like watercolor, oils, wood carvings, paper, etc. These creations will remain for many human lifetimes with active maintenance and care by the current owner.
• High maintenance art includes performances, street art or graffiti. These creations will remain as long as a central authority upkeeps it (museums, theaters, galleries, governments).

Each approach comes with pros and cons. Some are more expensive while others require deeper technical expertise. Some are more restrictive in what you can express (e.g. marble, stone, on-chain) while others are more easily worked with (e.g. performance, live, cryptographically hashed).

Ultimately there is no one size fits all. Different mediums are better suited for different concepts and the resources available to artists.

In addition to permanence, there’s also the matter of provenance, or how to determine the origin of something’s existence. From the very beginning of our venture, our team at Async Art has worked from the principle that the best way to achieve this is to let artists mint their own tokens on the blockchain from their own unique address. This allows future collectors to prove the authenticity of an artist’s work by pointing to the minting transaction and minter address:

One obvious alternative is to let the platform itself do the minting. This gives the platform control, for example, to give creators more convenience or usability while putting more of the authentication burden on collectors in the future.

If the platform had minted “El Gato” in the hypothetical sale I described in the previous article, then the seller would also have to make the case that Leonardo da Vinci did in fact use that platform at the time. (The seller could do this perhaps by presenting screenshots of artist conversations, social media posts, articles, etc. but unfortunately that moves the process back towards being mostly trust-based, which begs the question of why we use a blockchain in the first place.)

The following is a partial list of the most popular current art platforms (in alphabetical order). This research was conducted solely by simply inspecting what’s available on the blockchain today (1/17/2021)

I want to emphasize that there is probably no "one true way" to achieve art permanence and provenance. It’s up to artists and collectors to understand the tradeoffs of each approach and use the ones that best suit their needs. A collector speculating on the price of an art piece over the next year or two cares less about permanence and an artist intent on creating a work that's more easily authenticated will almost surely want to push through the technical challenges of minting for themselves.

A definition of the following:

• Token Metadata - How to access the token metadata file or verify its integrity. Token metadata includes properties such as art title, description, artist name, etc.
• Art File - How to access the art file or verify its integrity.
• Provenance - Which entity executes the minting process.
• 100 Year Permanence - What’s required for this art piece to survive 100 years if minting platform + image host goes offline. (All of these assume that the Ethereum blockchain is still running)
• Token Address - A link to a sample contract for the art so you can investigate for yourself.

Art Blocks

• ‍Token Metadata: On-chain
• Art File: On-chain
• Provenance: Artist Initializes Project, Buyers Mint Tokens
• 100 Year Permanence: Metadata such as art name, artist, description, and generative script are forever preserved.
• Token Address: Click Here

Avastars

(Not an art platform per se but a leading on-chain digital collectable)

• ‍Token Metadata: On-chain
• Art File: On-chain
• Provenance: Buyer Mints
• 100 Year Permanence: Metadata such as art name, artist, description, and generative script are forever preserved.
• Token Address: Click Here

Async Art

• ‍Token Metadata: Cryptographic Hash‍
• Art File: Cryptographic Hash‍
• Provenance: Artist Mints‍
• 100 Year Permanence: Current owner must maintain a copy of the original art file and token metadata to verify integrity.‍
• Token Address: Click Here

BlockchainArtExchange

• ‍Token Metadata: ??? (Contract Unverified)
• Art File: ??? (Contract Unverified)
• Provenance: Platform Mints
• 100 Year Permanence: Requires BlockchainArtExchange (will update once contracts are verified)
• Token Address: Click Here

Cargo

• ‍Token Metadata: ??? (Contract unverified)
• Art File: ??? (Contract unverified)
• Provenance: Artist Mints
• 100 Year Permanence: Requires Cargo (will update once contracts are verified)
• Token Address: Click Here

infiNFT (Alpha Gallery)

• Token Metadata: On-chain
• Art File: Cryptographic Hash + Arweave
• Provenance: Artist or Platform Mints
• 100 Year Permanence: Metadata such as title, artist name, artist note are forever preserved. Current owner must maintain a copy of the original art file to verify integrity. Art File and Metadata forever preserved as long as Arweave network is running.‍
• Token Address: Click Here

KnownOrigin

• ‍Token Metadata: Cryptographic Hash
• Art File: Cryptographic Hash
• Provenance: Artist Mints
• 100 Year Permanence: Current owner must maintain a copy of the original art file and token metadata to verify integrity.
• Token Address: Click Here

MakersPlace

• ‍Token Metadata: Cryptographic Hash
• Art File: Cryptographic Hash
• Provenance: Platform Mints (via a uniquely assigned “Creator Blockchain ID”)
• 100 Year Permanence: Current owner must maintain a copy of the original art file and token metadata to verify integrity.
• Token Address: Click Here

Mintbase

• ‍Token Metadata: Cryptographic Hash + Arweave
• Art File: Cryptographic Hash + Arweave
• Provenance: Artist Mints
• 100 Year Permanence: Current owner must maintain a copy of the original art file and token metadata to verify integrity.Art File and Metadata forever preserved as long as the Arweave network is running.
• Token Address: Click Here

Nifty Gateway

• ‍Token Metadata: Collection name + artist name on-chain. Some art titles on-chain, some externally hosted.
• Art File: Cryptographic Hash
• Provenance: Artist or Platform + Buyer Mints
• 100 Year Permanence: Current owner must maintain a copy of the original art file to verify integrity. Metadata such as collection title and artist name are forever preserved. Individual art titles for some collections on-chain and some require Nifty Gateway.
• Token Address: Click Here

OpenSea

("Lazy Minting") Nuanced approach, please refer to: https://twitter.com/dievardump/status/1349316646092075008

• ‍Token Metadata: Externally Hosted (Contract Unverified)
• Art File: Externally Hosted  (Contract Unverified)‍
• Provenance: (See tweet above)‍
• 100 Year Permanence: Requires OpenSea.‍
• Token Address: Click Here

(OpenSeaAsset)

• ‍Token Metadata: Externally Hosted
• Art File: Externally Hosted
• Provenance: Artist Mints
• 100 Year Permanence: Requires OpenSea.
• Token Address: Click Here

‍

Rarible

• ‍Token Metadata: Cryptographic Hash
• Art File: Cryptographic Hash
• Provenance: Artist Mints
• 100 Year Permanence: Current owner must maintain a copy of the original art file and token metadata to verify integrity.
• Token Address: Click Here

SuperRare

• ‍Token Metadata: Cryptographic Hash
• Art File: Cryptographic Hash
• Provenance: Artist Mints
• 100 Year Permanence: Current owner must maintain a copy of the original art file and token metadata to verify integrity.
• Token Address: Click Here