World Art Bank has launched a platform to sell digital assets of famous Ukrainian artists to raise millions for the refugees fleeing the brutal Russian Federation invasion. A collection of iconic paintings from Ukrainian Avant-Garde artist and sketches depicting the invasion of Ukraine will be sold in tokenised format to raise £2.5m (€3m euros) to aid the refugee crisis which is quickly engulfing Europe.
Although NFTs have been around since 2014 they have become an increasingly popular way to buy and sell artwork in a digital format. A staggering $25 billion has been spent on NFTs in 2021, and the market continues to grow.
World Art Bank (WAB) is the first art asset-backed cryptocurrency. Launching this weekend March 20, WAB uses its expertise to create an art NFT collection for a not-for-profit humanitarian campaign.
All funds collected will be credited into a special crypto account set up by the Ukrainian Government and directed to the people of Ukraine to use for humanitarian purposes. WAB has created a unique modern solution, the Art for Ukraine’s Refugees project, for emergency fund raising by merging Art, Cryptoassets, and NFTs.
WAB CEO Eric Pelletier said: “As the world’s first asset-backed cryptotoken, we see NFTs as a great opportunity to provide direct financial support to the Ukrainian people by the purchase of art by their greatest national artists. We are seeking to leverage a digital approach to the age- old problem of helping a country under threat and supporting its refugees, by creating a new NFT purchase portal, Art for Ukraine’s Refugees”.
Art for Ukraine’s Refugees, with the support of WAB, will issue and sell 1,045 NFTs to support Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian Federation invasion. These NFTs will be sold in ETH, WETH, BNB and USDC on OpenSea, with an access point as low as €20 per share.
Proceeds are expected to reach upwards of €3m. The NFTs are created by cyber artist Mobaygv and are the mix of sketches from the current war in Ukraine, and from Soviet Avant-Garde Ukrainian artist paintings from a private collection which include works by Malevich, Ekster, and Tatlin, from the early twentieth century.
Art for Ukraine’s Refugees is issuing 1,045 NFTs created by Mobaygv using a unique algorithm combining 109 paintings with 100 sketches from Ukrainian refugees and the war. The best 1,045 combinations have been turned into NFTs.
An additional tranche of 500 NFTs will be auctioned as well should the first tranche of 500 NFTs sell quickly. The NFTs will be released on Sunday, March 20, 2022, with auctions and sales phased over that week, ending on Sunday, March 27, 2022.
