\nArkive is building the world\u2019s first decentralized museum<\/br>
\n2023-01-20 22:27:11<\/br><\/p>\n
What if museums<\/span> were curated and funded by the internet, and allowed pieces to stay close to their cultural roots, displayed in a context that made sense? Native art in native museums, religious artifacts shown in temples, mosques and churches, and so on? That\u2019s the premise of Arkive<\/a>, which just raised a $9.7 million round of funding, bought the original patents for the world\u2019s first electronic computer \u2014 the ENIAC<\/a> \u2014 and is launching out of stealth this week. TechCrunch spoke to the company\u2019s founder and CEO, Tom McLeod, to find out why we need a blockchain-powered museum.<\/p>\n Let me just start by saying that I\u2019m generally pretty bearish on blockchain tech, and nobody in their right mind would pitch a crypto startup to me. This one caught my eye, however, and it is with great reluctance and grumpy-old-man-ness that I\u2019m willing to leave the door ajar to the possibility that this may actually be a sensible use of the technology.<\/p>\n The company\u2019s goal is to create a community of everyday people who want to curate, own and create culture by opening access to one of the most exclusive asset classes ever created: museums. It also aims to solve something museums have traditionally had a monopoly on: deciding what art is significant enough to preserve, and worthy enough to display. The company is planning to be a counter-weight to the fact that only a tiny fraction of collections are being displayed to the public, with more than 90% of items being locked away in private collections.<\/p>\n This is not McLeod\u2019s first rodeo. His previous startup, Omni, was acquired by Coinbase<\/a>, and he\u2019s had a number of other exits in the past, including Pagelime, which SurrealCMS acquired in 2015, and LolConnect, which was snapped up by Tencent three years earlier.<\/p>\n \u201cArkive is an entirely new down-up model where everyday people are part of curating the collection and defining an item\u2019s artistic historical relevance and place in culture,\u201d McLeod told TechCrunch. \u201cWhen we set out, we asked, \u2018What if the Smithsonian was owned and curated by the internet?\u2019 and that\u2019s what led us to launch Arkive. We are hell-bent on building a vibrant community that\u2019s part of defining historical significance.\u201d<\/p>\n Arkive acquired the original patent for the ENIAC computer.\u00a0Image Credits: <\/strong>Arkive<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As a decentralized autonomous organization (known as DAO among brevity-loving friends), Arkive\u2019s collections are curated by its members who vote on which items they want to acquire. The idea is to transfer these to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that replace, store and manage all historical provenance, authentication, quality and condition on the blockchain. As McLeod describes it, the blockchain tech is essentially there to capture the metadata of the item itself and to enable fractional ownership of an item.<\/p>\n The first item the community elected to buy was the original patent for the ENIAC<\/a> \u2014 widely recognized as the world\u2019s first programmable, electronic general-purpose computer. The patent itself is long expired, of course, but as a historical artifact, it\u2019s a wonderful curiosity.<\/p>\n In a delightfully geeky video, the Arkive team shares why it\u2019s excited about the ENIAC patent:<\/p>\n![\"ENIAC](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Acquisition-The-ENIAC-Patent-Large.jpeg?resize=1024%2C576&ssl=1\")
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