World First: how to own shares in a Picasso masterpiece

A Swiss digital bank will offer customers the ability to buy tokens and shares in a Picasso painting

The art investment fund is offering shares in a Picasso masterpiece from 1964.

“Fillette au béret” is being sold or “tokenised” – via the blockchain.

Sygnum, the digital asset-focused Swiss bank organising the sale, says this is a world first.

ASTs will go on sale for a minimum subscription of 5,000 Swiss francs, Sygnum said.

The artwork measures 65 by 54 centimetres and is estimated to be valued at 4 million US dollars.

Investors will have the chance to buy and sell shares in the painting on a secondary market through blockchain technology.

Mat Cole from ACT Capital Partners says its the perfect use for blockchain.

So, do you physically own the artwork?

No. There will be no physical artwork to change hands.

Organisers say the painting, while being available for loan to museums and exhibitions, will be stored in a high-security facility

“This marks the first time the ownership rights in a Picasso, or any artwork, are being broadcast onto the public blockchain by a regulated bank,” it and co-organiser Artemundi, an art investment company, said.

“Tokenisation lowers the barriers to art investment and opens up the art market to a broad range of new investors,” Sygnum’s director general and co-founder Mathias Imbach said in the statement.

In the “Fillette au béret” sale, the tokens are fungible and no Picasso will be burned.

Is blockchain here to stay in the art world?

Mat Cole from ACT Capital Partners says it certainly is, to the extension of being an NFT.

“This is a collectible it is on the blockchain use of technologies here perfect. Is it a smart contract? It shows provenance. And it’s exactly what something like this should be if we’re looking at fractional ownership,” Cole told ticker.

Coles says there’s those two really interesting parts.

“One is a really great use of blockchain technology for something that we know has value for something that we know has scarcity,” Cole says.

Cole says there is a great use of the blockchain technology to bring it into what is the digital world or a modern environment, and actually provide a “really intelligent contracting solution and ownership solution for a really, highly desirable piece of an asset.”

However, he notes the second part is fractional ownership, by sort of crafting the use of the blockchain technology, and allowing people to have fractional ownership.

“I think that is a trend we’re starting to see more and more of, and I think that’s a real opportunity for blockchain technology. And I think it’s a real opportunity for wealth creation.”