Not For Treasuries? The Role of NFTs in the Preservation of Cultural Heritage Following the Collapse of the NFT Market

The NFT market’s collapse foretold the fate of NFTs and the gradually decreasing interest in collecting tokenized artworks, since reaching their peak popularity in 2021. Yet galleries, libraries, archives and museums (the GLAM sector) appears to be appreciative of their contribution to cultural heritage preservation. NFTs’ potential to preserve traditional and new media art can help reflect the changing cultural landscape nowadays within GLAM institutions, in fulfilment of their mission to preserve a more diverse and inclusive cultural heritage that can be accessed by the public. In 2024, several galleries and museums around the world have embraced NFTs and are increasingly utilizing them as a means to educate and engage diverse communities of art admirers with their collections. Yet the initial use of tokens for fund-raising have tainted the picture with money laundering and other criminal law considerations, whereas the tokenization of art has, in some instances, come up against copyright laws on the one hand and cultural heritage laws on the other. While GMs’ future steps in engaging with tokenized art should be careful, they can also be bold, if they are to revolutionise the cultural content that we are to be exposed to, in line with their public mission to preserve both tangible and intangible cultural heritage.