It's over a century since the legendary ship Titanic tragically sank in the depth of the Atlantic Ocean taking with it many lives and mysteries. For many years, due to the lack of appropriate technical equipment, the wreckage was buried under 3,750 meters of water, inaccessible for exploration. Since the 1985's many expeditions to the sunken ship have been conducted, bringing multiple artifacts from the vessel to the surface.
Currently, the only company that holds the exclusive rights to recover artifacts from the Titanic and its smaller wrecks scattered around an extensive bottom field is RMS Titanic (RMST). To make the invaluable artifacts available to a wider audience, as well as to preserve them for many generations to come, the steward of the sunken ship decided to tokenize those pieces and immortalize them on blockchain as NFTs.
To make this possible, RMST has entered into a partnership with Hong Kong-based Venture Smart Financial Holdings and web3 firm Artifact Labs. Each party in the collaboration will play its specific role in the project. Of course, RMS Titanic will supply the invaluable artifacts from the sunken vessel that will be preserved as NFTs to allow shared ownership rights to the general public.
Venture Smart Financial Holdings, in its turn, will be engaged in structuring the tokenization of IP linked to the physical items. Those tokenized artifacts will be offered as an investment option to reputable investors. The initiative is aimed at “compliant capital raising” to accumulate funds for the current research, recovery, preservation, exhibition, and licensing of RMST’s assets.
Finally, the creative minds from Artifact Labs will process 5,500 NFTs for the recovered artifacts, utilizing their in-house NFT system. Moreover, all future items to be lifted from the Titanic's wreckage are also set to turn into NFTs.
Artifact Labs will also create the Titanic DAO, allowing its members to participate in various initiatives and vote for future exhibitions and programs on the Titanic website. As part of the DAO, various educational programs, digital content, documentaries, research, partnerships, and events will be conducted. Moreover, the Titanic DAO will also have its own treasury that will be managed by its members using governance tokens and funded from the NFT sales.
According to RMST, the initial collection of the Titanic NFTs will be an ultra-limited edition of digital collectibles, forming the basis for the Titanic web3 community.
Additionally, upon minting the Titanic NFTs, each collector will be treated to a plethora of physical and digital perks such as access to VIP events and exhibitions, seminars with historians, and multiple other never-before-seen experiences. The holders will also be offered to interact with RMST content outside of physical exhibitions in Atlanta and Las Vegas.
“As the salvor-in-possession of the Titanic wreck site, we are determined to ensure that the Ship’s artifacts are preserved in perpetuity and accessible to future generations. We believe that moving into the digital space allows us to reach a broader audience with quality programming that educates and inspires,” RMST president Jessica Sanders commented on the upcoming initiative.
For now, there are no specific dates for the launch of the project, but we hope RMST will announce them in a while. Stay tuned for updates!
