This chapter explores the opportunities and challenges presented by non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for the museum sector. Faced with unprecedented financial difficulties during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, NFTs offered to museums and galleries not only potential new income streams but also innovative ways of engaging with audiences and a fresh approach to collections. The grounding of NFT technology in decentralisation, democratisation, and direct trading relationships offered the possibility of a form of economic mobility for those who participated and had the potential to disrupt traditional art market structures. NFTs represented a new tool to explore creative responses to challenges faced by 21st-century museums, including accessibility, digitisation, and restitution. This chapter considers both the financial promise of NFTs for museums and the broader questions they have raised for the cultural sector. Important ethical and legal issues have arisen, and solutions are being sought by stakeholders from a multitude of disciplines. Given the pace of technological development, the rapid emergence of new use cases for NFTs and the complexities of the questions they raise, the search for answers will no doubt be an ongoing and iterative process, developing over time in response to the ever-changing landscape.
This article was submitted and presented for the 2022 SECAC Conference held in Baltimore, Maryland, from 26 October to 29 October 2022. It inquires about and seeks to challenge several key questions. Provoking thoughtful discussion and delivering new insights into the brave new world of Web3. This article aspires to contribute meaningfully to the academic and professional discourse through analysis and investigation of these topics in the field and how colleagues and stakeholders’ behaviours adhere to or reject them. What is a system? How does the system benefit its participants? How do their actions help the system thrive? Throughout humanity, we have searched for newer and more efficient ways of improving our current systems by adopting new methods. Although the methods of approach change, the behaviour of the participants ultimately shapes the effectiveness of the system. In navigating our art world, understanding the systems of operation is crucial to the decision-making process. This behaviour allows for former systems to have new life through educated forms of physical code (humans) that regenerate those ideals into actions that ultimately reshape the new system into something familiar. That familiarity seems like comfort – but it is the quiet before the storm. Herd collecting will crush the confidence in collecting new artwork because of volatility in the art market. Because once the herd leaves, will the work have any demand?