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Marketplace · F.A.Q.
CoArt Market is where private persons buy and sell physical art and collectibles: paintings, watches, coins, musical instruments, sculpture and anything else of collectible value. The seller uploads the object with its photographs, its story and its documents. CoArt Market’s expert group first assesses whether it has artistic and collectible value, and only then allows the object to be shown in the showroom.
Everyone who takes part in a sale has equal rights on the platform. So the “seller” here is simply whoever first starts the creation of the object’s cryptographic certificate. We call this certificate the FCC. It stays the object’s unchanging, unique identifier for the rest of its history.
FCC stands for Fractional Cryptographic Certificate: the object’s cryptographic certificate of authenticity. It is recorded on the Symbol blockchain and bound for good to the object’s “information container” in Arweave, a decentralized permanent storage. The certificate names the object, keeps, where the object has them, the data to identify it precisely in the future, should that ever be needed, and records every transfer of ownership by itself. It passes to each next owner and is never offered, priced or sold apart from the object.
Before its FCC is created, every object is reviewed by CoArt Market’s expert group. It studies the photographs, and any expert reports and documents there are, and makes a preliminary assessment of whether the object has artistic and collectible value. It then approves the object, asks for changes or for more evidence of authenticity, or refuses it. The preliminary review takes a few days; we write to you with its outcome.
We do it to offer everyone who buys and sells here quality objects with a clear preliminary attestation, above all when an object has been out of cultural circulation for many years. To automate this work and take in far more submissions, including from the most remote corners of the world, we are developing DAC (Decentralized Art Consulting), a decentralized community of experts.
The seller presents the evidence of authenticity and answers for it. CoArt Market does not confirm authenticity, but it does not admit obvious fakes.
Where the object has a digital fingerprint — and we are preparing one for every family of objects — the FCC’s information container on Arweave holds close-ups of its surface and other data to identify it. The close-ups are the object’s fingerprint: the finest texture of its surface, which no other object has. They are stored encrypted; the buyer receives access to them only after delivery. Their hash is recorded on the Symbol blockchain with the certificate, so nothing in them can be changed or added to unseen.
The comparison is made by a computer-vision program. In the buyer’s photograph and in the close-up from the certificate it finds the keypoints of the surface and describes each with a SIFT descriptor, robust to rotation, scale and lighting. It pairs them by Lowe’s ratio test and keeps only the pairs that agree with a single geometric model, a homography estimated by the robust MAGSAC method. A new photograph of the same place matches by dozens or hundreds of points; a photograph of another place, or of another object, by only a handful. A match means it is the same object. On a claim, a CoArt Market specialist decides, with what the program found.
Objects are bought and sold by private persons. A seller states that they sell their own object outside any business, or act for another private person under a power of attorney. CoArt Market itself sells nothing. At checkout, the buyer sees that the seller is a private person with the same kind of account as their own. So the right of withdrawal that EU law gives a consumer in a contract with a trader does not apply to a sale between two private persons. Besides, these are unique physical objects, and by long-standing practice they are bought as is (caveat emptor).
The FCC records every transfer of ownership: the date and the price of the sale, without the parties’ legal names or contact details. The sale itself is made by a sale agreement the parties sign electronically; the certificate confirms that this is the same object, keeps the history of ownership and does not stand above the agreement.
CoArt Market accepts art and collectibles of eight families, from paintings and jewellery to watches and coins. You fill in the Seller Declaration once: your full name as in your document and your date of birth; you must be 18 or over. These details are used only to fill in your sale agreements automatically.
From there, you can buy objects in other showrooms to resell them, or put up your own. Your object goes through the preliminary review and is cleared for its certificate. If it does not pass, that object is not shown, but you can still put up others. The upload section of your showroom explains, step by step, how to upload an object.
An object can be shown without a price, only to receive offers, or put up for direct sale; an auction will soon be available too. You set the price in euro and sign the sale agreement for it; the buyer signs the same agreement when they pay. Putting an object up asks for no identity documents: where money is involved, the payment provider checks your identity, as EU regulation requires.
When the buyer pays, the price less 10% goes straight to your account with the payment provider and stays frozen there until Closing. After Closing, the provider pays it to your bank or card account; if your account is not in euro, in your currency at the provider’s rate.
You hand the object over within 72 hours of the payment being confirmed; for an object above €4,000, of the payment for its delivery. CoArt Market agrees with you, for each sale, how it is packed and handed over, depending on the carrier and on the object’s size and value. A courier may collect it from you, you may hand it to the carrier yourself, or you may bring it to CoArt Market’s office, where it will be packed. The buyer pays for delivery and its insurance.
CoArt Market’s fee is 10% of the price, paid by the seller. While we build our first network in Europe, listing and the certificate cost nothing; later, the preliminary review by the expert group and the creation of the certificate will be paid for.
Delivery and its insurance for the period of delivery are paid separately. Sellers do not send objects themselves: only through logistics companies we work with, and soon through CoArt Market’s own offices in different countries. For an object up to €4,000, the delivery line is shown at checkout. For an object above €4,000, once the price is paid, CoArt Market asks carriers for the cost of delivery and insurance to the buyer’s address and sends the quote within 3 business days. The buyer pays it within 48 hours, or withdraws from the sale and gets the money back.
Where the object crosses a customs border, the export permit is the seller’s; import customs clearance, duties and taxes in the country of delivery are the buyer’s. These costs are not part of the delivery and insurance, and are worked out separately for each sale.
The buyer pays on the payment provider’s page. The price goes to the seller’s account with the provider and stays frozen there until Closing, the completion of the sale. CoArt Market keeps its fee at the moment of payment; if the sale is cancelled, the fee goes back to the buyer with the price. The seller hands the object over within 72 hours of the payment; if they do not, the buyer may withdraw and get back everything paid.
The object travels insured by a specialised company; damage on the way is an insured event. When the logistics company confirms delivery, the buyer has 48 hours to accept the object or to make a claim. There is one ground for a claim: the object delivered is not the one shown in the showroom. For this, where the object has a digital fingerprint, the FCC’s information container holds its identification data, which the buyer receives to compare within those 48 hours. There is no other ground: the object is bought as is (caveat emptor), on its gallery files and documents, and the object’s page shows the documents that passed review.
If the object does not match, the buyer gets back the price and the cost of delivery and insurance. If it matches, or 48 hours pass with no claim, the sale closes and the seller’s payout follows.
Every sale on CoArt Market is recorded on the Symbol blockchain as a transfer of the object’s FCC from one party to the other. The object’s page shows these records in a readable form, which we call the provenance ledger: the date and the price of each sale, without the parties’ personal data. In effect, it is a provenance kept automatically, which discloses no private information to third parties.
Legal names, contact details and agreements are kept by CoArt and are not published. The copy of the Seller Declaration in the certificate carries no name, e-mail address or IP address. The seller’s full name and date of birth are in the sale agreement, which the buyer receives after paying.
The first record in the provenance ledger appears the day the FCC is created; from then on, every sale on CoArt Market is added to it. Everything before the certificate is the history the seller told, with the papers that passed review. The seller answers for the accuracy of this information, ownership included. Property disputes over a sale are settled between sellers, buyers and third parties in the courts of the relevant jurisdiction. Both parties hold a legally valid sale agreement; the FCC and the provenance ledger confirm that the sale took place, but they are not financial or legal instruments that stand above the agreement.
This is the main difference between our model and other online marketplaces for physical objects: what an FCC records stays unchanged. Information can be added to it, but nothing already recorded can be corrected or deleted. It holds everything needed to identify the object and records every transfer of ownership by itself.
To resell an object with an FCC, its new owner needs to do nothing more: in “two clicks” they put it up in their own showroom. No new certificate, no new review, no new object page. The identification data are stored securely, encrypted, at the level of our platform — the foundation of a global network of marketplaces that begins now with our first European marketplace, based in Lithuania. Wherever in the world the next sale on CoArt Market happens, it is recorded on the Symbol blockchain as a transfer of the certificate. The object’s page adds it to its history of ownership: the date, the price, and the public names the parties chose for their profiles.
Having bought an object on CoArt Market, you can sell it here too, from your own showroom, on the same terms as its previous owner. Buyers and sellers have equal rights here. Not everyone buys to resell, but anyone may, at the price they judge right. The certificate passes with the object, with all the evidence of authenticity accepted at review and with the digital fingerprint suited to the object’s type and family, where it was recorded. Reselling needs no new review and no new proof of authenticity or provenance.
Yes. Press “Make an offer” on the object’s page. The offer stands for 14 days. The owner accepts it, declines it or answers with another price; nobody decides for the owner, not even an employee of CoArt Market. If the owner accepts your offer, you have 24 hours to pay. If they accept another, yours is marked “Sold to another buyer”.
You can propose more than a price: for instance an exchange, a photo session with the object, or showing it in your regional museum. We do not step into such arrangements between the parties.
Above all, we aim to build a truly horizontal, decentralized system for selling, buying and reselling unique physical objects, built for collectors themselves, heirs, emerging independent artists, “seekers of hidden treasure” and many others.