How an Art Blockchain Company Let 109,768 People Learn More About Art In 2 Month

Fresco have officially completed FRESCO ICD process.

Total 109,768 verified community supporters passed FRESCO ICD Tests and got their distributed tokens.

Through the process, tens of thousands of people go to museums, galleries globally, engage in conversation about art.

This is truly a wave of exuberance to the expansion of our global art world!

Updated Token Distribution
ICD Distribution Amount: 219,536,000
FRESCO Foundation Reserve: 180,464,000
Institutional Investors & Team Reserve: 100,000,000

The FRESCO ICD’s remaining tokens will be added to the FRESCO Foundation and be utilized for FRESCO Network’s infrastructure & key alliance building, supporting artists, museums, galleries and other art organizations that are willing to work with FRESCO and adopt blockchain technology to better facilitate provenance, promotion, and liquidation of artworks globally.

They will publicly announce each token distribution from the FRESCO Foundation wallet to ensure utmost transparency.
https://etherscan.io/token/0x351d5ea36941861d0c03fdfb24a8c2cb106e068b?a=0x3549b042981a4f77beae925bba0e114c58850e1c

They tried their best to distribute FRESCO tokens to all verified test passers, but bots and repeated scammers have significantly slowed down the whole process. Their official email has been bombarded with people trying to get tokens with machine-generated social profiles.

Also they are glad to say that they have distributed to 99.9% of the ICD passers.

Regarding Price & Market Cap

As a utility token and stays true to its purpose, FRESCO do not care about token price nor the market cap. They firmly believe that if they keep working on solving the art industry problem and building FRESCO Network, the price and market cap will reflect itself.

The Art World Secrets You Should Know About

FRESCO ICD & Its Impact To The Art World

The following is written by a passionate FRESCO supporter & artist who wishes to remain anonymous, he recounted his dialogue with FRESCO Co-Founder Roy Huang about the FRESCO ICD & its impact to the art world.

I ran into Roy and Ting on a bustling Basel day, amidst the stunning dresses of gallerists and comfy footwear of collectors. And I was so curious about how these two young souls are seeing through the barred world of art and galvanizing the public to seek after art collecting.

I squeezed through the crowd and joined their conversation, at a break from booths powered by of art and money.

Interestingly enough, I happened to attend one of their meetups in New York close to my workplace, and shortly afterward, heard about their company from my friends. I was awkwardly introducing myself with the story while Roy said he had collected a handful of such coincidences in the past months, from the huge community of FRESCO, of course. Some of them are admittedly much more dramatic than mine.

Me: “So, why distributing the FRESCO tokens for free? What was the initial spark that triggered a second thought on ICO, if not because the ICO market was in a misery since earlier this year?” The question had been asked many times, I suppose, but I was hoping for something fresh and more personal.

Roy: “To be honest, the decision was not easy. I didn’t determine my mind to break from the mainstream at the beginning. Personally, I was unsatisfied with the sinking market — I invested much into it — but was not clear about an alternative road to fund the project solidly. For a long time, I was hesitant about turning to traditional VC or keeping up with this new ICO model fashionable in the blockchain industry. I kept looking until I realized how bubbled the entire thing about ICO was; each inch of progress towards launching an ICO was gnawing away my initial angel funding and risking the whole team. It was also the time a few VC came to me to ask about potential investment. So I thought, I’m done with this pit and should do something more ethical for the long run. Crowdfunding through ICO is not the optimal thing to do in today’s intricate and murky market, Crowdgiving through ICD is the way to go, only this way can we truly create value for blockchain community supporters, it should not be a trade of their valuable fiat or crypto asset.”
Me: “That’s brave of you, yet, working in finance, I’m wondering how you convinced institutional investors regarding the profitability in your business model?”

Roy: “There were a lot of late night meetings. The FRESCO blockchain platform (FRESCO Network) will always stay decentralized and its utmost focus is to maintain FRESCO tokens’ function to facilitate provenance, promotion and liquidation of artwork. We are also building other initiatives under the FRESCO brand to create more sustainable revenue streams that will not only satisfy our token holders but also our shareholders. For example, the FRESCO Gallery to represent talented artists discovered on FRESCO blockchain platform; the FRESCO Studio to represent FRESCO as a virtual blockchain artist and does collaborations with other big-name & emerging artists… This is a rather intuitive group of initiatives that are tied closely to each other but can run on their own to achieve its set functions. The business proposal has been in discussion with a number of investors already, and they…”

The conversation was interrupted by a collector saying hello to Ting. It was then I started to think about Ting’s years of experience in the industry. I wanted to ask about her turning point from a career in the close circle of the rich and the powerful to this opportunity of equal entry. With this thought, I turned around and, yawned. I soon realized the answer is already inherent in this scene. You get enchanted at first sight, but sometimes you can get bored from the same looks everywhere, however much you love it.

Me: This quick chat brought to my mind the subtlety — and likely the complication — to balance between the potential art investors and these experienced shareholders. “How do you see your role in this art market?”

Roy: “As I’ve been stating in many speeches, I’m not here to disrupt. I wrote on my personal blog that ‘expanding the art world while protecting it.’ Our ICD differs from most airdrops in that it requires people to pass the 100-question art test, a test weekly updating into a new measure to expand the art population. We started with just 100 questions, then ask people to go to museums or galleries to experience art and take photos of the work they love, then onto the conversation about their favorite artists & artworks. We are very humbled to see almost 110,000 people passing these art tests within 2 months.”
Me: “I actually took the test but failed two times on the art history questions. I was terrible at art history back in high school, and I’m not proud of it. But I see the fun in it through your test.” I was trying to force a bit of interest in art, on an occasion I was only accidentally invited to.

Roy: “So I guess you also see how people are responding to the test with passion. A guy named Farhem was sharing about how he happily solved his daughter’s art history homework from the test he did right the day before. He later came to recommend the test to a bunch of friends. If you join our Telegram group, which is now one of the largest in the world, you can see people enthusiastically talking about the project. We have a few opposing opinions on some of our decisions, which no one could ever avoid, but we’re proud to see other community members uttering their supportive voices in intense debates. Also, thanks to the criticism, FRESCO gets to see the most authentic ideas from the industry and be inspired by the points from both sides

Me: “Indeed. I’m afraid I do see some doubts and harsh questions from the group and other online forums, particularly some complaints on the test. ”

Roy: “Just as both Poussin and Rubens would never expect themselves to be favored by all, we are not that naive to hope everyone will patiently sit through the test on their own and enjoy the entire process. If you do make sense out of one question, or admire one piece of work mentioned in the test that you didn’t know about, I’ll sincerely congratulate you on one step forward to appreciating art, this precious heritage of our human species.”
Me: “To that point, I was awfully fascinated by the questions on the market prices of works. Some of them are outrageously high, at least to me, while some of them are just incredibly affordable. I guess now I’m a bit addicted to online window shopping, of art. That’s also why I begged a gallery friend to get me in here.”

Roy: “Then you’re a perfect audience of FRESCO! The entire idea is not about scooping wallets of working-class people for buying million-dollar art or convincing rich kids to throw their inheritance solely into art investment, but to sparkle such moments of love, for the works you can truly communicate with and also readily afford.

https://medium.com/fresco-network/fres-edition-the-prints-multiples-for-the-digital-era-42f6f2351346

You know, after launching two weeks of art test and attracting tens of thousands of participants, we were exploring an effective way to engage people more profoundly. People may easily get bored and frustrated from learning Latin, but not many of them get tired of learning art history, because you remember the thrill when standing in front of a Vermeer, or entering the door of the Sagrada Familia. You experience it and converse with it. So from the third week on, we hoped to evoke this thrill of art and added additional conditions to the test. The initial requirement was that each participant should go visiting a museum or a gallery, taking a photo of a work with its label, and posting it on social media with some comments. That’s how the vast archive of photographed artworks was formed collaboratively.”

Roy took out his phone and showed me the hashtag on Instagram.

“Voila, all these amazing sculptures and paintings absent from our museums. People growing up in well-off families and going to elite boarding schools may poorly conceive how some other people from another side of the planet are inaccessible to art museums and knowledge of art. We did come to expose the problems we were not fully aware of. If you browse through the numerous posts from our test takers, you’ll soon realize how many works of art are not lucky enough to be preserved in an optimal place, how many of them are in regrettable conditions; we need more awareness of the value of our cultural heritage and especially art, more measures put into practice to conserve them in a long term.

Meanwhile, the project also presents some lesser-known pearls to the world. They may come from a local museum that is not funded to build its online archive and located in a small town you’re not very likely to visit in life.

I’m truly grateful for all those contributions made to this test. Sometimes we do need a little incentive to create something magnificent. The day I set off to bring changes to the art world, I didn’t very much expect to attract such a huge community from our first major campaign.”
Me: “I wish I didn’t take the test one week early, otherwise I could’ve pushed myself to see a museum or gallery somewhere. There’s so much going on, but I haven’t done anything artsy in months!”

Roy: “I’m afraid, in this sense, you’ve missed more than that. In the following weeks, the test evolved into Art Conversation. People are expected to chat about a work of art with their friends and record minutes of the conversation. At first, this sounded demanding and my team was not sure how many people would be willing to present in front of the lens and expressing opinions about art. Participants, though, were not expected to give a professional speech, but to share their individual perspectives. I always collect works I have visceral feelings about, those relating to the modern society — Takashi, Araki, or Virgil Abloh, — and I’d be excited to talk about how they resonate with my generation and myself.”
Me: “So the entire sequel is trying to encourage those not usually engaged in the art scene to experience and appreciate art?”

Roy: ”The short answer is yes, yet at the same time we don’t exclude or challenge the current art circle. We welcome artists in whatever stage of their career and collectors of whatever interests and backgrounds, as well as the art administrators whoever plays a role in this intricate system of art. In our final week of art test, Art Expansion, we targeted at these groups of professionals. Anyone having a proof of themselves being an artist, an art school student, or a gallery or museum staff will easily get the 2,000 tokens.”

“Is every step of yours always so steady and confident? And I’m not referring to your absolute fitness.” I looked at this guy who would frown upon any stereotype by being young and determined, mentally sharp and physically strong, and possibly wearing a well-tailored suit as an enthusiastic collector of millennial culture.

Ting and Roy smiled. “It’s hard to get 150,000 people to search about art history and sitting through the test until they pass it with 80/100, even harder to keep up with the 2-month schedule and eliminating the tons of bots. Though probably the hardest part is to keep fit in this drawn-out battle, between the exclusiveness of art circle and my attempt to open it up. You’ll need bodily strength for a chance to revolutionize and rebuild.”

Me: “So what will this future be like?”

Roy: “We’re trying to envision the future of art from every perspective. The change is going to be enormous. As of the details of this structure, I’d like to leave it open for our community. Anyways, FRESCO is nothing like a giant dead-end establishment. We build its model carefully and precisely, but the randomness in the actual game is the charm of the art market. You march ahead under desire for power and money, unlike anywhere else in the world, but simultaneously in the process, you push forward the boundary of beauty, truth, and the unexploited territory in the history of art.

This is also the essence of FRESCO. We bring forward art education — help more people understand and appreciate art — and we encourage them to gain profits, reputation, or any desirable values attached to art from this market. Through this organic process, we’re building a reliable chain of ownership records, helping artists to make art without worrying about funding or living expenses, and expanding this market to a massive scale that everyone can easily participate in. Purchase of art will be taken as routine as going to the groceries — except that art will last. You won’t be daunted by a supermarket staff, so shouldn’t you be in front of a gallery sales.

I’m not sure if you’re fully favorable of the way every salesperson talks to you today; but in the future, a label showing the FRES Editions of each art piece will assist you to make the purchasing decision. Million-dollar deals will not be replaced by transactions of digital certificates. We simply offer you another possibility to engage and benefit from art, and you can choose whichever way you’re more comfortable with. In either case, FRES Trust can be of great help to you.”

I began to imagine how I’ll gaze at an Amy Sherald or a Mark Bradford, take a really close look, and think about how many editions I’m going to get. Maybe Instagram, if it isn’t shadowed by any social media for art years later, will be filled with Editions some celebrities recently issued and the many people who lately bought an edition or two, set against a Chanel bag, a Louis Ghost chair, or a well-groomed lawn. And if we look back then, the new era of “art pride” can be dated to the art tests where the FRESCO community shared pictures and conversations about art.

The two founders told me they were heading to Paris, for studio visits and a few business meetings. They look so sure about the future when they walked to the booths again. I could only imagine how the ICD model might get adopted by more blockchain companies, though possibly prompted by various situations. If the attempt of ICO is not so welcomed officially — for due reasons — the ICD, as it appears, may genuinely consolidate the foundation of this precarious market.