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Chinese artist duo TaMen uses NFT to authenticate US$23,000 dogecoin painting, in new frontier for blockchain ledger technology

  • Painting depicting cryptocurrency dogecoin sold with an NFT for US$23,168 worth of bitcoin
  • Brokerage Macey & Sons plans to accept bitcoin for all other collectibles as well in the future

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The TaMen painting at Macey & Sons in Hong Kong. Photo: Jonathan Wong
Georgina Lee

Lai Shengyu and Yang Xiaogang, who are behind the Hunan artistic duo TaMen, have taken Chinese contemporary art to a new frontier by tapping blockchain technology to show how non-fungible tokens (NFTs) can be used to bust fakes and safeguard artists’ copyrights.

TaMen, which means “they” in Mandarin, are known for their surrealistic paintings that often depict the contradictory nature of societal progression and corruption. The duo tokenised one of their physical paintings and sold an NFT together with the artwork to a Hong Kong-based buyer for HK$180,000 (US$23,168) worth of bitcoin through art brokerage Macey & Sons this month.
Lai and Yang, both in their forties, are helping to bring NFTs back to the basics by using them to establish the provenance and authenticity of their art work. Such a token is non-fungible as each represents a unique asset and is therefore not interchangeable with another. This is in contrast with bitcoin, whereby all the 18.8 million in circulation today can be swapped between two parties at market price, and a buyer is generally indifferent to which bitcoin is being offered.

01:20

JPG file by digital-only artist Beeple fetches nearly US$70 million at Christie’s auction

JPG file by digital-only artist Beeple fetches nearly US$70 million at Christie’s auction
The TaMen NFT also cuts through the hype created by the skyrocketing prices fetched by artists such as Mike Winkelmann, who is better known as Beeple. Auction houses have raced to host NFT sales after Beeple sold his digital artwork in the form of an NFT for a record US$69 million in a Christie’s online auction in March. Where Beeple’s NFT features art only in a digital format, the TaMen token is pegged to a physical piece of art and establishes its authenticity.
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“An NFT is a digital representation of the ownership of the physical assets,” said Scott Thiel, partner and head of technology for Asia at law firm DLA Piper. “As the provenance and authenticity of the piece is established on blockchain, it helps reduce fraud and fake art.”

01:38

China calls for more research and investment into blockchain technology

China calls for more research and investment into blockchain technology

Macey & Sons has been working with DLA Piper for over a year to tokenise art pieces, which has been made possible by the global law firm’s tokenisation platform. This platform employs about 20 people in Hong Kong, Thiel said.

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A blockchain ledger keeps an unalterable, permanent record of transactions. Traditionally, artists sign a certificate of authenticity with the gallery or brokerage helping with a sale, but confusion can kick in when the piece is sold subsequently. Paper certificates often get lost, be tampered with and are not forgery proof.

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