Until now, artists and their curators have typically sold creations to a singular buyer. Companies, on the other hand, have been able to sell their equity and asset-backed securities to multiple buyers through regulated markets, in the process creating increased value and liquidity.
Then was born the idea of fusing art trading with blockchain, an idea born from the mind of Stephen H. Watkins who envisioned that anyone could own a part of world-acclaimed works of art through a regulatory-compliant marketplace. Thus, Entrex Art Market, LLC was conceived.
The art industry is buzzing with the stories of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and the various works being sold and securitized. But there’s not much focus on what happens to the display of such pieces if you’ve sold the asset.
The Entrex patented technology creates a unique way to allow the blockchain to authorize the display of art. Imagine, whether at the yacht club, on your iPhone, or on special digital displays within your home, you can display beautiful works of art while showing that you are the authorized owner of the art.
Entrex was founded in 2001 as a capital market system for entrepreneurial companies. It established regulatory-compliant, niche capital market systems that supported regulated market constituents to originate, structure, place, trade, settle, and service securities of entrepreneurial companies. Working together with industry leaders, the Entrex platforms allow investors to find, research, track, manage and trade entrepreneurial securities whether by geography, sector or commodity.
Democratizing Art Ownership
The Entrex Art Market is democratizing ownership of world-acclaimed art by putting the ‘pieces’ in masterpieces. The Entrex Art Market’s technology platform is an award-nominated, regulatory-reviewed capital market system that provides an end-to-end trading solution for securitized products, commodities, debt and equity in niche marketplaces.
The platform, which was featured by IBM® in a best-practice showcase and case study for their Hyperledger and Domino® technologies, is the foundation of the alternative investment marketplaces the company creates.
Collectively, the Entrex Art Market is a masterstroke for museums as well as owners and collectors of masterworks. Entrex Art Market now allows owners the ability to recapture a significant portion of their capital by selling Securitized Art Interests in masterworks while maintaining full control and possession of the works themselves. Owners can continue to control, and display works while regaining up to 49% of their current appraised value.
“The Entrex Art Market is built upon a Blockchain-enabled technology platform that is the first regulatory-compliant marketplace bringing together qualified fractional buyers and sellers of major works of art,” remarked Mr. Stephen Watkins.
Entrex’s Securitized Art Interests are offered in increments of US $10,000, and for the first time allow a larger proportion of the investing public to participate in the global, world-class art market.
There is only one regulatory-compliant marketplace for Securitized Art Interests – and that is the Entrex Art Market. The Entrex Art Market is a majority-owned subsidiary of Entrex, Inc., a publicly traded company under the ticker symbol UNSS
Owners of Entrex’s Securitized Art Interests own a fractional piece of the real-world masterwork and benefit from any potential increase in the value of the work over the long term. The company believes that unlike an NFT, pursuant to Entrex’s ‘No-Action Letter’ request filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it is important to provide legitimate masterpiece assets traded via regulated market constituents across a regulatory-compliant marketplace to provide comfort, ease and efficiency to the alternative investment community.
A Leader with A Vision
Entrex began as part of serial entrepreneur Stephen H. Watkins’ desire to improve access to capital for other entrepreneurs. Having established while scaling his own ventures that entrepreneurial businesses were largely underserved by existing capital markets, Watkins designed a successful capital market solution focused exclusively on entrepreneurs and their growing businesses.
As part of this endeavor, Entrex designed and built a technology platform to provide an end-to-end trading solution for securitized products, commodities, debt, and equity created by entrepreneurs. The platform managed the first equity offering on the blockchain – the Overstock.com offering – and is the foundation on which the alternative investment marketplaces that Entrex manages today are built.
The Ever-Evolving Game
Technology and institutional investors manage approximately 80% of the 3,400 activily-traded companies on the NYSE and NASDAQ directly and through over 28,000 funds. Algorithms affect prices in milliseconds – faster than any retail investor can think – placing price discovery and ‘investment’ out of reach of the majority of investors today.
“The intent of the Entrex Capital Market System is to support the 28,000,000 private entrepreneurs across the United States – versus the limitations sanctioned today by the regulatory agencies,” Stephen added.
Words of the Wise
When asked about what advice he would like to endow onto budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the financial services space, Stephen replied, “The financial services sector is vibrant and exciting – while maintained by surprisingly few well-capitalized constituents. This is helpful to entrepreneurs exiting – while challenging the norm in formative years means one should be well-capitalized for a long battle.”
Analyzing Change and Capitalizing on the Future
“The pandemic has allowed all of us to see the fragility of smaller companies across the world – while allowing entrepreneurs to recognize, create and scale innovative solutions for the ‘new norm’,” says Stephen.
He further elaborates that Wall Street needs little to affect the further efficiency of the 3,400 actively-traded stocks and the focus should be on democratizing capital access to worthy entrepreneurs across the United States. Regulators need to maintain investor safety while creating a path, through regulated market constituents, to viable and worthy investment opportunities.
Art Museums and collection owners are finding their significant book value of worldwide acclaimed masterpieces can be liquified while maintaining control and possession through Entrex Art Market “Securitized Art Interest” offerings.
The Entrex team believes this year will see nearly one billion dollars of Securitized Art Interests offered through the Entrex Art Market while they separately anticipate formalizing their prominent leadership position with a significant worldwide auction house.