ICO Alert Quick Facts
- Decentralized registry for the arts & collectibles (“A&C”) industry
- $0.067 US = 1 CODX
- Whitelist registration (July 2–6, 2018)
- ICO: July 23, 2018 — August 8, 2018
- 400,000,000 CODX available in ICO / 1,000,000,000 CODX total supply
- Existing partnerships integrating Codex into more than 5,000 auction houses
Q & A
ICO Alert: For those who are not familiar with Codex Protocol, can you explain what it is, and what the team aims to accomplish?
Codex Protocol is a decentralized registry for unique assets, backed by an industry consortium representing $6 billion in sales across 5,000 auction houses. We are initially focused on art, wine, jewelry, watches, memorabilia and other collectibles (a $2 Trillion asset class).
Codex uses the blockchain to store and verify provenance information such as ownership history and authenticity. This information makes it easier to buy, sell, price, lend, fractionalize, insure, so that everyone can unlock the full value of unique assets.
ICO Alert: We love that Codex’s token will allow you to make amendments to a title. How does the Codex token function within the platform and why is it needed?
CodexCoin is required to access the registry and modify the records that represent each piece. For example, a user may want to transfer a record. A lender may want to register a lien. Users and businesses can either stake or pay CodexCoin to make these changes. These fees are used to reward validators like appraisers, auction houses, dealers and artists who verify information. This ensures incentive alignment, encourages beneficial behavior and distributes governance.
ICO Alert: How will provenance on the blockchain increase the value of what is being auctioned?
Provenance is the biggest driver of monetary value for a unique asset. It is comprised of authenticity records, ownership history and other documentation which proves the history of the item such as appraisal reports, condition reports, import and export licenses and exhibition records. Today, most of these things are still paper-based and get lost, damaged or are very easily forged.
By using the blockchain to record provenance we can make this information easy to access and verify. This enhances the trust that buyers have in the item and makes them willing to pay more. It also means that lenders can lend more easily, insurers can insure more easily, transactions are more efficient. It becomes easier to unlock value in many ways.
ICO Alert: How large is the market for art auctions and how does Codex plan to market itself from the competition? Do you believe creating a system that eliminates antique fraud will encourage more people to participate in auctions?
The art & collectibles (A&C) asset class is about US $2 trillion with annual transactions of about $620 billion. Codex is backed by an industry consortium that provides access to 5,000 auction houses that sell 10+ million items annually worth over $6 Billion. This ensures that Codex will become the standard registry in this market, which is our differentiation from the competition. We and our consortium believe that buyers will bid and buy more when they are more confident in the items they are purchasing and when they can decide what to pay more quickly.
ICO Alert: How do you plan on motivating conservatives in the art industry to adopt this new technology?
The collectibles market has often adopted new technologies. For example, Ebay’s growth in the 1990s was driven by collectible trading.
Codex has such a huge amount of potential to improve the art and collectibles industry that we’ve found conservatives are eager for a registry. The only reason they haven’t adopted a centralized one is that collectors and intermediaries have not been willing to trust a central entity with information about their valuable possessions. With blockchain, we can provide a decentralized solution that the market is eager to accept.
It also needs to be as easy as possible to use. Our consortium is integrating Codex into the existing bidding software already used by 5,000 auction houses, so there is no behavior change. And we are working with application developers who will make the user experience require no blockchain knowledge.
ICO Alert: What incentive mechanisms are set up for both small and large stakeholders to participate?
Codex Protocol will reward stakeholders who contribute value to the network by validating and loading items onto the registry. For example, auction houses will be rewarded for logging sales. Independent appraisers will be rewarded for verifying items. These rewards will encourage participation.
Businesses and users who need the data in the registry will be required to stake and/or pay fees. For example, buyers will stake or pay to claim records from sellers. Lenders will pay to place liens. Insurers will pay to register insurance. These mechanisms, especially staking, also enable users and businesses to engage in governance.
ICO Alert: How does your team see traditional auction houses and art collectors potentially participating in the platform? For example, do you believe your open and decentralized protocol influence traditional collectibles firms to hire developers to build new platforms on Codex?
A registry only works insofar as it is adopted as a standard, and we absolutely believe existing firms will build on top of Codex. In fact, they already are! We have established a consortium of leading online marketplaces, software providers and auction houses with operations spanning over 50 countries who have agreed to support Codex as an open and decentralized protocol that anyone can integrate with. Many have already finished integrating with us! Visit
www.liveauctioneers.com/pages/biddable to view several auctions that have already integrated, selling everything from Rolex’s to Picasso’s.
ICO Alert: How far along is the project today and when can contributors expect to use the platform? What does the roadmap look like for 2018?
Codex has already announced many industry partnerships and released two Beta dApps. The first,
Biddable, is used in auction houses like LiveAuctioneers for buying art, antiques, and collectibles. The second, Codex Viewer, lets you create and manage blockchain identities for your unique assets. We’ll launch the viewer to mainnet in July. We’ll be launching in hundreds of additional auction houses through the rest of the year.
We invite those interested in learning more about Codex to visit
ICO Alert: As a non-Codex Protocol question, we like to ask for unique predictions for the ICO and cryptocurrency space in the future. Where do you see both in the next 3–5 years?
Over the next 3–5 years, we believe more and more companies will use tokens as part of their business model, and a strong secondary market will exist. However, we expect companies to issue tokens later and without as large initial sales. In other words, more tokens will have real utility.
Source: ICO Alert
