Our legal, financial and tech teams have been working very hard behind the scenes, and after many months of conferring with legal and regulatory experts, we are now proud to announce that we are ready to roll out our new tokenisation vehicle.

This is a big moment for us. It gives our team immense satisfaction to continue to be pioneers in the asset tokenisation space. We believe that this new tokenisation vehicle is a major step towards achieving true asset tokenisation. This new vehicle is the result of a full re-think of our tokenisation strategy, and it brings Maecenas one step closer to market democratisation and to our ultimate objective of achieving mass adoption.

Under this new financial structure we are creating a new type of token that is neither utility nor security. We call these new tokens "asset tokens". With this new framework, each artwork is represented by a unique asset token, which internally is structured similarly to how a stablecoin works. We believe that this is something revolutionary that can transform the art world. It removes the traditional barriers to investing in art as an asset class.

Launching this new token type -- the asset token -- is a major milestone in realising our vision. 

New Tokenisation Vehicle

The new structure is set up to ensure that newly issued tokens are NOT considered securities in the relevant jurisdictions. As sales of securities can be subject to additional compliance requirements, it creates additional overheads and places restrictions when it comes to token promotion and distribution. These effectively block our journey towards realising our vision.

The new token model lifts accessibility restrictions and also allows us to lower the minimum investment amount.

Not only is this model scalable with less incremental cost for each tokenised art piece (thus allowing us to grow and expand more quickly), but it also opens up the market to non-accredited investors, helping us to truly achieve our goal of democratising art investment.

Successfully Disrupting Markets

Cryptocurrencies have seen tremendous growth over the last ten years, since Bitcoin was first launched, because they don't have the restrictions of traditional capital markets. A market is disrupted when technology changes the rules of the game by creating a new, better and more efficient way of doing things.

Skype achieved success because they allowed people to make phone calls without needing a phone or a phone line (i.e. legacy telco infrastructure). Likewise, cryptocurrencies have been successful because they let people make and receive payments without needing a bank account (i.e. legacy financial infrastructure).

We believe that for art tokenisation to be successful we have to allow people to invest and trade art without having to rely on legacy infrastructure.

This means that we must achieve the following: 

-  lower minimum investment amount
-  lower tokenisation costs 
-  open up the market to non-accredited investors 
-  increase liquidity 
-  promote mass adoption 

How is this new tokenisation vehicle helping Maecenas achieve that?

Fully Decentralised Auctions & Enhanced ERC20 Tokens

While our first beta auction of 14 Small Electric Chairs (1980) by Andy Warhol had to be held on our private blockchain.

All auctions going forward can be fully decentralised.

All minted asset tokens will also be ERC20 compliant, and will have enhancements embedded that are needed to grow the ecosystem into crypto-custodians, insurance companies and others. Being ERC20 compatible means that the tokens can be tracked on the Ethereum blockchain, and can be held in any compatible wallet and traded on any exchange where it is listed.

From now on tokenised artworks can be fully embraced and accessed by the global and decentralised crypto ecosystem.

ART Utility Token

Long time supporters of our project are familiar with ART, Maecenas utility token. Having recently listed at Bittrex International, which now runs the market ART/BTC, we are committed to providing our holders & supporters with liquidity and first-tier exchange trading options. ART holders will also be pleased to know that we have a US legal opinion confirming that ART is also not considered a security, and thus is subject to less restrictions. Our tokenomics will be revised in line with the new tokenisation strategy to achieve true democratisation.

Path to Mass Adoption

Good things take time. That's especially true for the creation of innovative new markets. In order to achieve critical mass, we knew that it wasn't enough to just have a great product, and provide access -- we also had to make it easy and inclusive if we wanted to achieve a tipping point. 

Being the first company to successfully tokenise and auction a multi-million dollar artwork on the blockchain, we have the first-mover advantage and have been gathering lots of valuable feedback from our beta launch, and are very excited to implement this improved structure in our upcoming auctions.

Next Steps

In the coming months, Maecenas will migrate all existing tokens representing Andy Warhol's 14 Small Electric Chairs to the new token structure and will finish upgrading its platform to support the new token standard. Upcoming auctions will kick off shortly after this.

We will also be releasing more news about our upcoming auctions. As mentioned, all asset tokens will be immediately tradeable on exchanges where they are listed, thus providing asset owners with greater liquidity and trading options.

If you are interested in signing up to the Maecenas platform, you can join the waiting list to be a beta tester.