Expo Chicago Launches New Blockchain App With Valence – ARTnews.com

Valence, a blockchain services company, has partnered with the Expo Chicago Art Fair to launch a new app called “Valence Wallet.”

“We have long recognized that there must be more efficient ways for all players in the arts ecosystem to interact with each other,” said Chris Vroom, co-founder of Valence. ART news. “Technology is how we achieve it.”

The app is launched during the tenth edition of the art fair, which takes place from 13 to 16 April. The app will offer a range of services, allowing collectors to purchase works through the app, provide certificates of authenticity and collect insurance, shipping and payment documents in one place, with service providers such as ARTA (an art shipping company) and Art Money (a payment solution for the art world) on board the app .

Vroom has founded several art-centric businesses, such as ArtStation, a digital art marketplace, and Collector IQ, a collection management application. He also founded the non-profit Artadia which provides grants to artists and curators.

After 20 years of working in the art world and developing technologies, Vroom wanted to find a way to consolidate everything that goes into buying and selling art in one app.

“When we developed the app, we looked at anecdotal data from galleries about all the services their collectors interact with, and they tend to need to access those services differently,” Vroom said. “So we really wanted to make the purchase flow and everything that comes after more beneficial to the galleries and the collectors.”

Valence Wallet is still in its early stages. Vroom hopes to add more services, such as collection management and pricing, soon. As the app uses blockchain technology to track provenance and transactions, Vroom hopes the technology will allow galleries and artists to benefit from the market they help create by getting royalties from the secondary market. Valence Wallet thus joins Fairchain, Arcural and other blockchain-enabled startups using web3 technology to serve the art world.

Less than a year after the crypto markets collapsed, it is interesting to see how this supposedly radical technology is being used to advance existing business practices.

“That the hype around blockchain has subsided is very positive,” Vroom said. “Blockchain technology will be used in a variety of ways, but the first uses must be logical extensions of existing business practices, not this sci-fi vision of the art market where there are no art galleries.”