Arkefi Release Recap: Telegram AMA with AllianceBlock Founder and CTO Matthijs de Vries and ARTBANX CEO Mads Boie Thomsen
AllianceBlock Founder and CTO Matthijs de Vries and ARTBANX and Arkefi CEO Mads Boie Thomsen recently engaged with the No Mercy community in a Telegram AMA. They discussed the release of the Arkefi, how it provides access to top-tier art-backed financing, and answered some questions from our community.
It has been a busy summer for AllianceBlock. They recently released a groundbreaking version of a decentralized exchange — the Nexera Exchange and collaborated with ARTBANX to develop their Arkefi Platform on the Avalanche Network.
At the start of this year, AllianceBlock announced a partnership with ARTBANX, the world’s most comprehensive, customizable and secure collection management system for collectors, art professionals and financial institutions. The partnership’s aim is to create a platform that unlocks more possibilities for art collectors by allowing them to access the liquidity of their physical art through real-world asset-backed financing with physical artworks as collateral. This further opens up more opportunities for the art community to provide liquidity and open the ARTBANX marketplace to a broader Web3 audience.
The new platform, Arkefi, leverages blockchain technology and decentralized finance (DeFi) to unlock liquidity for illiquid and unbankable assets while making high-value art and exclusive art, cars and collectibles more accessible in a transparent and user-friendly platform. Backed by the art industry experience of ARTBANX and the blockchain technology expertise of AllianceBlock, Arkefi transforms how individuals invest in tangible assets.
Arkefi’s inaugural luxury collectible investment will feature the renowned Danish-Vietnamese installation artist Danh Võ, who is based in the vibrant art hub of New York City. Võ’s work has earned him global recognition, with his art showcased at prestigious events and institutions such as La Biennale di Venezia, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City, and Palazzo Grassi in Venice. Notably, Võ’s works have experienced consistent annual appreciation rates exceeding 10%. Despite the high value of the exclusive collectibles featured on Arkefi, the platform’s inclusive approach means anyone can get involved. For example, the first listing will accept investments for as little as 100 USD. You can find out more about how to invest in this revolutionary fractionalized asset by following the six steps in this tutorial.
In the meantime, you can find a summary of the AMA chat between Matthijs, Mads and the No Mercy community below. Enjoy!
Matthijs de Vries, Founder and CTO, AllianceBlock: AMA time again!
Today we will do a small session in a closed chat only, followed by opening the chat completely so everyone can ask questions to Mads (or to me of course) instead of just a little towards the end.
The timing is incredible as the Arkefi platform just launched today with the tutorial posted just here: https://t.me/allianceblock/448186
So Mads, welcome to our channel!
Mads, CEO, Arkefi: Thank you very much! Heeeey everyone, pleased to be here today.
Matthijs: Amazing to have you here with us. Been quite a week, how are you doing?
Mads: Very busy week, getting Arkefi off the ground! 😉
Long nights, let’s put it like that!
Matthijs: I have seen an incredibly hard working team from the sidelines. 🔥 Incredible job guys!
So Mads, can you introduce yourself and then Arkefi?
Mads: Sure! So, I have been trading art since the age of 16 and have developed a valuation method for undervalued art. I bought the majority from Scandinavia (I am Danish) and sold it at auction houses such as Christie’s and Sotheby’s. I always had one major issue though 🙂: there was not enough liquidity to purchase more art… hehe.
Consequently, I founded ARTBANX around 3 years ago to solve many of the issues in the art market through a collection management system. It became very obvious early on that I wasn’t the only one with liquidity issues; all of the collectors needed it as well. Hence, the development of Arkefi! Arkefi addresses a need that most asset owners have and brings opportunities to the masses.
Matthijs: Can you elaborate a bit on how you solve that need with Arkefi (highover)?
Mads: The problem with non-bankable assets, such as art, is that no one can provide the liquidity to collectors. The existing methods benefit only wealthy individuals. So, by democratizing the assets with options, we give the majority of the upside to investors.
Matthijs: Exactly. I believe this is the right approach as well 🙂. Why did you choose to go for tokenization of RWAs though? What was the motivation to bring this on-chain?
Mads: Transparency in terms of transactions has always been hidden in the art world. Placing objects on-chain creates a new opportunity to empower technology. This also provides an avenue for entertaining community-driven platforms and educating audiences more about art. I hope that answers your question 😄.
Matthijs: Definitely! And it’s funny, because I believe that this use case is not just an improvement for the traditional art industry, but also for DeFi. As we are now bringing tangible assets on-chain — assets that have real-world value, can be touched and seen, and have a history outside of the blockchain — they exist as digital twins on the blockchain, unlocking efficiency and value for both buyers and sellers. This is what is so amazing to me; it goes beyond the NFT use cases we have seen so far.
Mads: The thing with RWA on-chain also creates more security as it has a “real” value. So, embedding NFTs around RWA becomes very very interesting.
Matthijs: Yes absolutely, its value is not tied to what a certain influencer says on Twitter or what kind of sentiment there is in general around the performance of BTC, etc. It’s way more stable and tangible.
In case someone here is interested in investing in the first listed art piece, what do they need to have/do in order to participate on the Arkefi platform?
Mads: Create an account, complete KYC and connect your wallet. Fractions start as low as 100 USDC. To get informed about the investment opportunity, download the PDF [insert PDF link].
Now, what some of you may have noticed, the image of the actual art piece is not visible.
Matthijs: 100 USDC! That’s very accessible.
Mads: The reason the image is hidden is that we are speculating in the buyback not being executed. That way, investors become owners at 50% of its value. But in order for us to resell the artwork, we don’t want everyone to know that the owners only paid 50k USDC for it 😉.
Matthijs: So, you are saying that it’s actually good for it not to be bought back (which is normally not the case)? 😱
Mads: Correct. If the artwork is being bought back, it results in “only” 4% ROI.
Matthijs:Real yield though. To be clear, this is not an unsustainable Terra Luna kind of yield guys 😉.
Mads: Hahaha
Matthijs: So, as you all can see, the chat has been opened [for community questions] 😎. As it’s kinda a new use case, I can imagine there must be plenty of questions, so feel free to ask. Please keep in mind that we will only focus on the Arkefi platform today and not on Fundrs, DeFi Terminal, etc.
#NoMercy Community Questions
Alejandro @WOO Network: Hello Mads, could you tell me a little about your company, providing me with data, number of clients, volumes traded and places where I can obtain information about you? Thank you!
Mads: Hi Alejandro, company data might be somewhat private, but I can tell you we represent several of the top 200 collectors and had last year more than $500 million worth of requests for financing.
Alejandro: Hi Matthijs, what will be the role of AllianceBlock here besides adding NexeraID soon? Will we be able to trade the art works on Nexera Exchange? Can you explain this to me a little?
Matthijs: We see the collaboration as a deep partnership, we don’t just provide tech, we assist from many other angles, where it makes sense at least (insurance, liquidity, etc.). Besides that there are also more opportunities than just art in the future, so a long fruitful collaboration ahead is what I see!
And yes, with regards to Nexera Exchange, we have on the roadmap the ability to trade fractionalized RWAs, including those from the Arkefi platform.
Dann: I was wondering.. I am really excited about ArkeFi, but how do you see the future? Do you guys plan to make more things except ‘only art’ available on your platform in the future?
Mads: We will introduce art as well as cars and collectibles, such as diamonds.
Dann: Nice! Also jewelry for example or just diamonds ?
Mads: Also jewelry, yes!
Dann: And what about gold?
Mads: Gold is not in the pipeline sadly! At the moment, we have around $60m in requests for art and cars.
Dann: That’s huge 👀🔥
Unexplained: A warm welcome to Arkefi’s CEO, Mads!
Eagerly anticipate exploring collections through the lens! What is the minimum expected return on investment when using the buyback option?👍
Mads: The minimum expected return is 4%.
Unexplained: Thank you, sounds promising🔥
Alejandro: How are you going to attract your clients to trade on Arkefi? Or are you looking for new clients only with this platform?
Mads: We already have what I would call an attractive investment opportunity. 4% is almost impossible not to get.
Dann: Do you guys have marketing plans to promote Arkefi in a bigger way?
Mads: Yes, we have a couple of collaborations soon to be announced. 😉
Alejandro: What has been your relationship with Avalanche? Why Avalanche?
Matthijs: That’s a good question! Avalanche actually is a big believer in tokenization of RWAs; we are quite aligned with regards to the vision on this. Besides that, they are an excellent network, fast, decentralized and low fees. We have collaborated on certain things with Avalanche before (see also Data Tunnel subnet on Avalanche) and have always found them extremely pleasant. So, all of this combined, it’s almost a no brainer.
Dann: Can we see the assets to do an investment on your website? Will it be in dollars, or also different cryptocurrencies?
Mads: You can not see the image of the artwork but the data around it. We currently only use USDC.
Dann: Yes I know, but I mean what about the future? Will it become possible to pay with cryptocurrencies for example?
Mads: Most likely not. The thing is that the art, cars or whatever has a stable price and to use crypto it would be too volatile.
Alejandro: At this time, what is the technology provided by AllianceBlock that has facilitated the launch of Arkefi? Why did you choose to collaborate with them?
Mads: The blockchain technology and the integration inside of the web application. AllianceBlock was chosen due to the technology and the people behind it — the right people are important for us in collaborations.
Alejandro: Thanks for the answers!
Matthijs: Mads, so right now the platform is live with its first listing (meaning people can already invest now as we speak — see also the tutorial posted earlier). But can you maybe tell a little more about the artist? Who is that and what are interesting things to know about them?
Mads: We had a smaller request for financing and it was for an artwork by Danh Vo. His works are in major collections and museums all around the world. The thing with art is that it is hard to get. Any emerging artists will only be sold to selected customers from galleries. So, this was a unique opportunity to bring such a piece in for financing as it would be a quick resale in case of a non-executed buyback.
Matthijs: Excellent choice for a pilot.
Alejandro: Is there any way for us NXRA holders to benefit from the platform?
Matthijs: Every transaction on the platform generates fees, of which a portion is utility to NXRA.
Roshambo: Is the ROI calculated over time or is it like a reward for investing after one year? Also, can we sell our fractions of investment before maturity? And while doing this, do we get any ROI on it?
Mads: It is on the roadmap to make the fractions tradable.
Mads: Let me ask you a question, Matthijs, what kind of assets or artists would you like to see on Arkefi in the future?
Matthijs: To be honest, I would loooove to see cars on there 👀. Maybe luxury watches too. I don’t know much about art, besides that I enjoy it, but once there are luxury/classic cars on Arkefi, I think I can die peacefully, haha.
Mads: Haha, how about the rest of you guys?
Dann: I would love to see lambos! Wen lambo on Arkefi sers?
Matthijs: The basics 😂
Dann: Hahaha no, I agree about luxury watches, and maybe something with gold in the future 👀
What about private jets and boats?
Mads: Probably not [private jets and boats]. They lose value in general. We want it to increase
Dann: But it’s the same with cars isn’t it?
Mads: Nope. Have a look at the recent auctions with Sotheby’s or Bonhams.
Matthijs: Actually, there are a decent amount of cars that retain their value well. Especially classic cars that have low production amounts, one-offs, hypercars, etc.
How about a signed jersey for us sport lovers? It’s a form of RWA too, and some are valued highly.
Matthijs: Alright guys, I think all the important things were covered for now. I want to give HUGE thanks to all of you for your amazing participation and question today ❤️. You are definitely an amazing and powerful community, love it!
Mads, where can people find Arkefi? Any socials they should join/follow?
Mads: Thank you very much for having me here today, Matthijs!
If any of you have more questions or input to Arkefi for me, please join us here:
Discord Server: https://discord.gg/CWye2tN9
Telegram Group: https://t.me/Arkefiglobal
See you soon all and thank you very much for your time.
PS, don’t forget to buy a fraction 😉
Cheers — Mads
About Arkefi
Arkefi serves as a pioneering platform that levels the playing field in the financing of art, cars, and collectibles by utilizing on-chain options. It offers a guaranteed return of up to 50%, allowing investors to acquire portions of these high-value assets at half their market price. This approach provides a compelling alternative to conventional methods of fractional ownership.
About AllianceBlock
AllianceBlock is an infrastructure provider for decentralized tokenized markets. It empowers businesses with liquidity provisioning and allows them to compliantly issue, manage, and trade tokenized digital assets, including real-world assets (RWAs).
The AllianceBlock ecosystem of partners, clients, and ventures consists of top stakeholders from the financial industry and the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector. Their unique product suite complies with global regulations and seamlessly integrates with legacy systems.
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