Tokenizing a work of art is not minting an NFT of its photo: it is fractionalising the economic ownership of the physical work through a vehicle that owns and safekeeps it. The token represents rights over that vehicle — and all the seriousness of the project lives in that structure, not in the image.
The structure: work, vehicle, tokens
The work is contributed to an SPV (or a fideicomiso, in Latin America) that owns, insures and professionally safekeeps it; the tokens represent units or economic rights of the vehicle: appreciation on the future sale and, where they exist, income from exhibition. If the token grants economic rights, we are in security token territory — with its corresponding framework.
Tokenized art vs NFT
The classic NFT certifies authorship or ownership of a digital piece; art tokenization fractionalises rights over a physical work whose value exists off-chain. They can be combined (the NFT as certificate + fractional tokens as the investment), but confusing them is the sector's number-one mistake.
The risks that matter
Authenticity and appraisal (the token does not fix a doubtful attribution), physical custody (insurance, conservation, auditable location), liquidity (art is already illiquid; fractionalised, it still depends on a market existing) and exit: who decides when the work is sold and how proceeds are shared? All of that must be in the issuance document — the same discipline we ask for when investing in tokenized real estate.
For galleries, collectors and issuers
Tokenization opens art to small tickets and gives partial liquidity to collections — if the structure is impeccable: a vehicle that really owns the work, a custodian that really holds it, a valuation someone independent stands behind and an exit rule written before the first token is sold. The technology is the easy part; the vehicle, the custody and the document are where a project earns or loses its credibility. That structuring — vehicle, rights, documentation and issuance — is the terrain of our asset tokenization service. Have a collection or a work and want to know whether it can be fractionalised? Talk to us.