Poland’s Pekao Bank Safeguards Art with Blockchain in Arctic Vault
Bank Pekao, the second largest bank in Poland, unveiled an innovative initiative to preserve the Polish heritage. In collaboration with blockchain platform Aleph Zero, Pekao would make digital copies of pieces of Polish art and safely keep them in the Arctic World Archive.
Tokenising Polish Art
In 2018, Archiv3 took classic Polish artworks and digitized them onto blockchain tokens. Tokenization is a process whereby hard assets can be securely held as digital entities. 3D scanning is what Pekao uses to digitize the works of popular Polish artists Jan Matejko and Stanisław Wyspiański.
Those will be digitized as NFTs on the blockchain of Aleph Zero. For this, the greener infrastructure of Aleph Zero ensures that these pieces of art would remain in a decentralized way, where threats regarding data corruption, unauthorized access, and others are at their minimal.
Arctic World Archive Preservation
The tokenized art will be stored on the blockchain but also archived in the Arctic World Archive, located in Svalbard, Norway. AWA is a specially constructed archive to protect vital cultural and scientific data against cyberattacks, natural disasters, and other forms of destructive events.
Incidentally, the AWA already houses data from UNESCO, the Vatican, and other leading organizations, which raises its stakes as host to Poland’s artistic treasures.
Blockchain and Art Preservation
The blockchain art preservation project by Bank Pekao unveils the beginning of a growing trend of traditional finances amalgamating with the latest technologies. Various projects, like Archiv3, and their decentralized ledgers provide modern new ways for secure, long-term preservations of cultural assets. This makes sure that these very important pieces of heritage are accessible for future generations in the face of global challenges.
The moves by Bank Pekao reflect a wider trend in the art world as blockchain increasingly is being deployed for the management of digital assets. For example, Christie’s just revealed plans to issue blockchain-based certificates of ownership for works of art sold at auction, illustrating yet another way in which blockchain is increasingly finding a role in the art world.
