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NFTs
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Titanic exhibitor teams with Hong Kong NFT firm Artifact Labs to mint relics on the blockchain

  • RMS Titanic, Artifact Labs and Venture Smart Financial Holdings are bringing the ill-fated ship’s ‘physical artefacts into Web3’ with NFT project
  • The partnership with two Hong Kong firms comes just after the city unveiled new details on regulations meant to turn it into a virtual asset hub

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The bow of the Titanic photographed during a dive in July 1986, marking the first time humans laid eyes on the vessel since its voyage in 1912. Photo: Handout via AFP
Matt HaldaneandXinmei Shen
RMS Titanic Inc, the company behind exhibitions for the sunken ship, is turning relics from the ill-fated 1912 voyage into Web3 assets through a partnership with non-fungible token (NFT) company Artifact Labs and Venture Smart Financial Holdings, a Hong Kong asset management firm.

The project aims to “bring the RMS Titanic and its physical artefacts into Web3” and to “place the legacy of the Titanic in the hands of the global public”, the companies announced in a statement on Tuesday. Artifact Labs plans to turn 5,500 physical artefacts recovered from the ship into NFTs, along with artefacts that may be recovered in the future.

The statement offered few other details about the project other than to note that Artifact Labs will also launch the Titanic DAO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation), through which members can participate in future initiatives. The NFT firm, which was started by the South China Morning Post and in which the newspaper still has an ownership stake, said it is not making other information public at this time, such as pricing or which blockchain it will use.

The partnership between RMS Titanic, owned by Delaware-registered Premier Acquisition Holdings, and two Hong Kong companies comes as the southern Chinese city vies to become a regional virtual asset hub with new regulations aiming to lure back crypto-related business that had left over the past few years.

Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) said on Monday that retail investors in the city will be allowed to buy virtual assets with large market capitalisations, such as bitcoin and ether, on licensed platforms. The new rules go into effect in June.
Hong Kong’s bid to be a bigger player in Web3 involves new regulations covering a range of virtual asset types, not just cryptocurrencies, although that is what is typically used to purchase NFTs. It has also been a focus of regulators in the city since the collapse last year of FTX, once the world’s second-largest crypto exchange.
The collaboration also comes about two years after hype around NFTs first kicked off, sending prices and speculation soaring. NFT mania had largely cooled by last summer, as prices fell amid a crypto market rout. NFT trading volume, denominated in US dollars, dropped 77 per cent from the second to third quarter last year, while prices also plunged 76 per cent, according to market tracker NonFungible.com.
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