UniArts

Art has been around for as long as there have been men?—?we make it, we look at it, we feel something. But “transmuting” that attention to money has always been hard?—?in the past, we had patrons of the arts, who donated parts of their wealth to supporting artists. The contemporary capitalist answer to maecenatism eventually came with the creation of art galleries?—?sort of networks of retail artists outlets to actually sell art.

Despite the historical and modern nuances, surviving as an artist has always been difficult and there’s so much literature, biographies, monographs, and memoirs that testify how most artists’ lives, even the most renowned and celebrated ones, has been marked by poverty and hardships (think of Van Gogh as one of the most illustrious examples).

Web3 has brought us into witnessing an apparently oxymoronic context: while it’s undeniable that NFTs have taken the world by storm and that the primary application has been in the field of art, the field of art still suffers from a number of important “pain points”. And that’s when the peeps at UniArts come to save the day. Before we get into the mechanics, we believe it’s important to get the vision fueling the UniArts’ ecosystem heart and soul.

1. The UniArts’ Vision

Today the UniArts’ network is seeking to change the paradigm for monetization of art, by using something that we could call “soft value”: imagine you have your Facebook account and you read a post from a friend and you like it. You, therefore, decide to “give it value” by clicking on the like button. But does the kind of value you tribute to it have “monetary value”? The answer is “not really”?—?or at least, “not directly

On the other hand, if you aggregate all the likes on someone who’s very popular, you would be able to monetize that via some kind of advertising mechanism. That’s currently a model that has not proven particularly successful, not very much transferable “as is” to the art context we’re referring to. Yet there is a potential there and the UniArts network is considering a parallel approach to the valuation of artwork. In order to understand that, we need to go back to the principles, namely “the 3 user states of commitment”

Theoretically speaking, there are 3 “states of commitment” to an artwork

• The 1rst state of commitment comes about when a user simply likes a piece of art. It’s the most basic kind of commitment and, generally speaking, not very actively involved (again there are nuances here, but for the sake of simplicity we’re not delving deeper).
• The 2nd is the purchase: a user decides to “put money on the table” and buy the piece of art. That’s the kind of final commitment that the peeps at UniArts are ultimately looking to recreate?—?namely, a way to transition from the 1rst state of commitment to the 2nd.
• The 3rd state is the bridge between the two previous states and it’s now possible thanks to blockchain technology and what we know as “staking”.

Staking allows us to take a real value?—?e.g. dollars?—?which we use to buy a number of $UART tokens (more on $UART tokens later on) and then to lock them up for a period of time in support of a particular piece of art. This process becomes more than just a “like”?—?it becomes instead a true commitment of sorts, while also being a commitment that avoids the potential risk of loss because:

1. A user can vote and it doesn’t cost him/her anything
2. Users can also get their tokens back.

There is, still, an opportunity cost. For example, a user could stake for one artwork but that implies renouncing the chance of staking on a different one (staking is only possible for one NFT at a time). Thus, enough attention and interest are needed in order to be “convinced enough” to stake in a particular work.

In the UniArts model, staking is valuable because it allows potential investors, which come together at an auction, to judge the amount of interest/commitment to a particular work. This gives them a sense of “how well the work is going to do in the future”?—?that is, how much of a current and future/potential market for that piece of art there is/could be. Maybe all of those people that staked for that artwork are not ready to actually bid for it, but they might be in the future: fortunes changed and people come into money and if they really like that work, and all they could do, at that point, was stake against it that would help give the market some liquidity. It also gives investors a greater sense of confidence that a particular work is interesting. In particular, this benefits:

• The artist > because, obviously, the artist gets a greater final price within an auction?—?pieces that get more stakes are more interesting and then investors are willing to bid up the price. This is a way of “quantifying” the interest for the piece.
• The staking users > because in the UniArts’ token economics model the stakers actually get a benefit from the sale and that’s because not all the proceeds of the sale go towards the artist but some of them get divvied up “royalties-style” and are paid to the users who staked on the artwork.

So, clearly, there’s a financial incentive for users to actually stake their funds?—?and this is a novel concept when it comes to art. There are all kinds of projects working in the art space and, while a user couldn’t care less about art, he/she might still?—?and probably will?—?care a lot about valuation mechanisms and token economics.

That is the heart of the problem that UniArts is trying to solve: there’s a great opportunity in making this valuation model work and to apply it to many other areas where there’s this sort of dichotomy between “soft value” and “hard value” and how to bring them together.

1. So, what is UniArts

With all that said, we can get to the point. UniArts is an Exhibition and IDO platform for NFTs with value discovery as its core feature. It also provides Art-Fi features that cover NFT voting incentives, DAO curation, NFT financing, and artworks NFT gaming to better bond & connect fine art NFTs with the community. UniArts is also developing its substrate-based network with EVMs powered smart contracts for NFT infrastructures.

Sounds still complicated? Let me break it down for you. Basically, UniArts was designed to answer a difficult question: how to properly value an NFT while also improving the NFTs use case? The answer to it lies in a bottom-up valuation approach, often simply understood as “vote NFT to mine”. Again, what do we mean by that?

It’s simply the conjugation of defining a proper process/method for appreciating an NFT with the opportunity to earn from participating in that process. In a nutshell, it’s the representation of how everyone on the platform should feel, according to the platform designers, about UniArts and it works like this:

• In the UniArts gallery, users can vote for NFTs they want to be climbing the popularity ranks or simply those they like; the votes are cast using the $UART token or wETH and are rewarded with more $UART tokens.
• At the same time, $UARTs are minted into an NFT with the number of votes received, giving the NFTs extra value and liquidity as the minted $UART tokens can be then claimed by the NTF owner.
• Finally, if the NFT a user voted on is sold at a high price in the following auction, users will receive more rewards, proportional to the number of votes/$UART tokens they’ve staked on that NFT.

This process is therefore aimed at creating a consensus mechanism that brings about NFT fair value through the means of blockchain technology and without implementing the process as an algorithm. It’s purely market-driven and “bottom-up” because everyone who has wETH or $UART tokens can vote, and every single vote matters. And here’s the paradigm shift: instead of a single sale deciding the value of an artwork, it’s the number of tokens minted that determines the price?—?much like what happens in a prediction market.

1. The Art-Fi Revolution?

With this model, UniArts’ introduces Art-Fi, and an innovative answer to bring about Fine Art NFTs. As hinted earlier, the Art-Fi model allows community members and owners of $UARTs & wETHs to vote for any NFT artwork that they want on the platform. Voting benefits both the art lover and the artist because they are both given new $UART tokens during the process, and $UART tokens get also minted/cast into the NFT (as the voting process ends) for the number of votes it received. Meanwhile, the user who wins the NFT auction will be able to claim (and eventually sell) the $UART. Therefore, in theory, the value of an NFT should not be lower than the value of the $UART contained in it.

At the same time, users can stake $UART tokens to bid for a curator position. This allows them to move their NFT from other platforms (like OpenSea) to UniArts?—?and while on UniArts, these moved NFTs can be displayed and voted, while $UARTs will be minted into curator’s (voted) NFTs.

The core idea about UniArts’ ART-Fi thus surfaces, emerges, and stands out with all its glory: bonding and connecting artwork NFTs with the community by applying what we could label as “social attributes”. NFTs Collectible become valuable because they are backed by community consensus and, with UniArts, everyone can become a Curator and showcase their collection in the best place within UniArts’ gallery, by letting the community gather and vote for these NFTs while benefiting from their appreciation.

1. Staking & Voting on UniArts?—?How Does It Work?

During a “voting round”, users can vote on the platform NFTs. To do that you can simply go to af.uniarts.network/vote and click on “View All Candidates” to see all of the NFTs candidates you can vote on for that specific voting round. Each NFT candidate will have a real-time counter next to it, displaying the number of votes it has currently received, highlighting how it’s actually faring in terms of “user appreciation” compared to others. On top of the screen, you will be able to see the time left to cast your vote for the current voting round. You can pick one among the listed NFTs and click on “Vote” to award your vote to it. A new screen will open, where you will be able?—?via smart contract interaction?—?to assign (namely, stake) a specific amount of $UART tokens?—?from your wallet to the bonding contract?—?to cast your vote.

It’s important to note how the voting process follows a set of rules, which recap the most important points of UniArts’ staking/voting mechanism:

• $UART & wETH holders can stake their tokens to vote for NFTs that they think will be most in-demand to earn $UART rewards.
• Each voting round will last no more than 14 days and will feature no more than 6 NFTs candidates.
• All the NFTs are then transferred to the auction round after the voting round finishes. The auction around period is 5 days.
• According to the number of votes obtained by each NFT, $UART rewards will be continuously cast into NFTs, which can then be claimed by the NFT owner.
• Voting for an NFT won’t cost any tokens. Voting tokens can be retrieved the day after at 00:00 UTC.
• Vote rewards are be distributed after UTC 00:00, every day, during the voting period.
• Auction rewards are be distributed after the auction round. The higher the deal price, the more benefits will be available to be reaped by the NFT voters.
• In case they’re NOT claimed, voting tokens will be counted as another vote for the same NFT.
• 1 wETH vote = 100 $UART votes
• Both voting rewards and auction rewards will be bonded first. Users need to unbond their $UARTs in order to withdraw them into their wallets. Bonded $UARTs can be used to vote for NFTs to earn more rewards. Unbonded $UARTs can NOT be used to vote.
• Unbonding $UARTs takes 60 days to complete and 1/60 of the total unbonded amount is linearly released each day during the process.

1. The $UART Token

The milestone $UART token listing event happened on Pancake and Quickswap on December 26th, 2021, marking the beginning of the journey for $UART token holders.

Here is some basic information about the $UART token:

• Blockchains: Ethereum, Polygon, BINANCE Smart Chain
• Token Type:
• Token Address Contracts:
• Polygon Contract address: 0xf244E91A46A9cdd48da295cA5d0B27894f8032B1
• Contract address: 0x507bde03a87a6aa134d16634545e3d79c11c137d
• Contract address: 0x5608d5159ab98881bc116ae7761c74ad2ebb0448
• Total supply: 100,000,000 $UART tokens
• : currently available on QuickSwap PancakeSwap

In addition to the above, about 60% of $UARTs total supply will be mined from voting. 20% of early investors’ $UART tokens will be released during a 5-quarters period after TGE. More detailed information about the tokens distribution and vesting tables can be found

Based in Singapore, the UniArts team is led and co-founded by blockchain entrepreneurs and Carl Chen. Despite its relatively recent inception, the team is already a “proud holder” of a grant from the Web3Foundation. The team also features art historian and ex-Artsy.net manage Sonia Xie (if you didn’t know, Artsy.net is the biggest online marketplace for art in China) as the art team’s lead, and Erick Calder as UniArts’ Technology Ambassador.

So far, the UniArts team’s main focus has been on building the platform’s infrastructure & functionality, the website, and the artists’ community. And while the project is in its very early stages of development, production speed is moving at a steady pace. If you’re curious, here’s a shortcut for you to have a quick glance at the website’s current goodies and features.

1. Conclusion

Can you see the vision in what the UniArts’ team is conceiving and bringing about? Can you see how the particular experiment that is being conducted within the UniArts’ ecosystem has the potential to really change things?—?to shift the paradigm for artists and art lovers? If so, you definitely want to be involved as an early adopter! We believe UniArts has incredible, unexpressed potential within the digital art world?—?and if you do too, you shouldn’t miss out on the opportunity to join the UniArts community through the official channels and links, right here, down below!

1. Community and Social Channels (as of February 8th, 2022)

UniArts’ Website

For everything you need to know about UniArts, visit the official UniArts’ Website

UniArts’ Telegram

Join the conversation on to stay in the know about UniArts.

UniArts’ Medium

To keep up with the latest updates from UniArts, follow them on their official Medium

UniArts’ Twitter

Get in touch and social with other members of UniArts’ community. Join the community on

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