South China Morning Post launches ‘ARTIFACT’ NFT standard, letting anyone own and trade pieces of history
- The new non-fungible token (NFT) standard aims to create a foundation on which history can be discovered, connected and collected
- The market for NFTs surged this year to reach US$2.5 billion in sales by the end of June
The South China Morning Post, founded in Hong Kong in 1903, has become the first news organisation in Asia to champion a new blockchain standard where historical and archival items can be connected, discovered and collected.
“Blockchain offers immense potential to immutably preserve journalism that witnesses and explains history,” said Gary Liu, chief executive of the Post. “The ARTIFACT project is an opportunity to discover, collect, showcase, trade, and reanimate meaningful moments and objects from our collective human experience, and we are excited to introduce this standard to the world.”
The unique “first drafts of history” in the forms of text, pictures, cartoons and graphics accumulated by the Post over a century of dedicated journalism – with only a brief period of suspension during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong from 1941 to 1945 – represent a deep vault of cultural and historical wealth.
The ARTIFACT project is part of the Post‘s ongoing efforts to stay on top of the latest technology trends to facilitate exchanges and dialogue.
