What is USEUM Collectibles?

If you are new to NFTs, please check out our introductory guide: NFTs & Cultural Heritage: A brief introduction.

USEUM Collectibles is a research-driven project that gives artists and art institutions the opportunity to understand, navigate and leverage “web 3” and the new art market of NFTs. In July 2021, USEUM Collectibles was named by Yahoo!Finance as one of five projects that are changing people’s view of the NFT industry.

USEUM Collectibles has received funding from Research England’s Higher Education Innovation Fund and is actively supported by UCL Innovation & Enteprise and UCL Business.

Research-driven approach

USEUM Collectibles is led by Dr. Foteini Valeonti, a Computer Scientist with a PhD in Digital Humanities and the lead author of the seminal paper on NFTs and museums: Crypto Collectibles, Museum Funding and OpenGLAM: Challenges, Risks and Opportunities of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). Since 2017 Dr. Valeonti’s award-winning research (funded by the AHRC) has been exploring ways cultural organisations could reap the economic benefits of their digitised collections by taking advantage of emerging technologies, in order to address their ever-increasing financial challenges.

Clients

Natural History Museum, London

  • Commissioned to explore NFTs as a potential fundraising medium for the institution, assessing the technology environmentally, as well as commercially, identifying opportunities and highlighting associated risks.
  • About the NHM: With more than 80 million objects in its collections, the Natural History Museum in London is the 10th most-visited museum globally.

Cure3 (Artwise & Bonhams)

  • Commissioned to be the NFT Project Partner of Cure3 2023, leading the incorporation of NFT artists into the exhibition.
  • Work involves primarily partnerships development in web3, collaborating with well-established NFT artists and contributing to the exhibition's curation.
  • About Cure3: Cure3 is an acclaimed contemporary art fundraising exhibition devised and curated by Artwise Curators in partnership with Bonhams to raise awareness and funds for Cure Parkinson’s charity. To date Cure3 has raised over £1,200,000 for Cure Parkinson’s ground-breaking clinical trials, which are aimed exclusively at discovering better medical treatments for this degenerative disease.

The Conversion Group

  • Commissioned to provide strategic consulting for TCG's creative portfolio companies on NFTs and related subjects, primarily the metaverse and mixed reality.
  • About TCG: The Conversion Group is a private investment vehicle investing in the luxury, lifestyle and creative sectors around the world.

Contact us

To get in touch please send us an e-mail at nft@useum.org.