Blockchain Revolution

ARTLERY FOR ART LOVERS: CONNECTING ARTISTS AND PATRONS
The traditional art market is notoriously exclusive and opaque. A relatively small
number of artists and collectors represent an incredibly large percentage of the
market, and there are very few, narrow, and sometimes circuitous paths for emerging
artists to enter the art world. Even so, the openness and generally unregulated nature
of the art market encourages experimenting with new concepts and new media,
democratizing the art market on one hand, and democratizing capital markets on the
other, with both hands on the transformative and disruptive power of the bitcoin
blockchain.
Artlery describes itself as a network of artists who have agreed to share some of
their earnings with patrons and peers who engage socially with their works.
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Artlery’s goal is to mint an art-as-asset-backed-currency on the blockchain by
engaging art lovers as partial owners and stakeholders of the art with which they
interact. Its approach is to provide the right incentives for all sides of the market—
artists, patrons, curators, and venues such as galleries, museums, studios, and fairs—
rather than provide perverse incentives for one party at the expense of the others. To
foster patronage and build reputation for an artist, Artlery stages initial public
offerings (IPOs) of digital pieces of that artist’s work. Artlery’s app enables artists
such as JaZoN Frings, David Perea, Keith Hollander, Benton C Bainbridge, and the
Bazaar Teens to replicate their physical works digitally, break them into many pieces
like a picture puzzle, and apportion them to patrons based on each patron’s level of
appreciation from within the Artlery app. During a work’s IPO period, patrons can
accumulate interest up to the specified percentage of the piece that the artist initially

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gifted to the community. As the platform matures, Artlery plans to allow for the
transfer and sale of the accumulated interests in the works.
At the 2015 Stanford Blockchain Summit sponsored by Artlery, Don decided to
back a work by Anselm Skogstad, titled EUR/USD 3081, an artistic rendering of a
euro currency note magnified and printed on a fifty-eight-by-forty-four-inch Dibond
aluminum composite.