Art Security Tokens: Picasso’s Fillette au béret Painting Is Co-owned by Over 50 investors, Sygnum Reveals

Last month, Sygnum had reportedly closed the subscription to its first Art Security Tokens (ASTs), representing the ownership rights to Picasso’s Fillette au béret painting.

As noted in the announcement, this landmark initiative “enables investors to purchase and trade tokens in this 20th century masterpiece on the public blockchain.”

The update also mentioned that the art market may be “difficult to access financially, with blue chip art costing up to tens-of-millions of dollars.”

As noted in a blog post by Sygnum:

“One of the well touted benefits of art tokenization is the potential for fractionalisation – or co-ownership – which allows investors to purchase a fraction of an artwork and participate in the financial rewards of art co-ownership at a lower price point.”

But tokenizing co-ownership of an artwork is “a new concept that poses complex challenges from a legal standpoint,” the announcement added.

Co-ownership rights need to be clearly defined and legally recognized so that “investors are protected.” The update also noted that viable exit options “to ensure that price appreciation can be realized are also an important consideration.”

Sygnum’s tokenization and legal teams “worked extensively to solve these challenges and bring the AST to the blockchain,” the update revealed.

As noted in the announcement:

“At the close of subscription, more than 50 investors had subscribed to the Fillette au béret, clearly demonstrating the viability of Sygnum’s legal framework, and establishing real demand for co-ownership of art.”

Since the launch of the AST, Sygnum has seen considerable interest from the market in the Fillette au béret and its tokenization offering “in general.” The success of this project “paves the way for a pipeline of unique investment opportunities as well as secondary market liquidity for asset tokens in the future,” the announcement noted.

As stated in the update:

“The Fillette au béret tokens are now available for trading on SygnEx, Sygnum’s token trading platform, and the Sygnum team is already working on other new and exciting token offerings.”