ARTU digital art patronage
Unlocks new layers of ownership, curation, and innovation across the digital art economy
Last updated
Unlocks new layers of ownership, curation, and innovation across the digital art economy
Last updated
$ARTU is a utility token on Base designed to power participation, access, and incentives across the decentralized digital art economy. It serves as a foundational asset for minting digital art indices, rewarding community activity, getting access to exclusive digital art in the future and sustaining protocol growth. $ARTU is not a security, investment product, or currency. Participation in $ARTU is subject to the .
At its core, $ARTU is designed not just as a utility asset but as a cultural statement, a way to empower those who contribute to the digital art movement. When users hold $ARTU, they’re signaling support for artists, ecosystems that respect royalties, and the future of digital art as a public good.
The $ARTU token introduces a new model of digital art patronage, one where holding, contributing, and participating in the ecosystem helps reward creative effort, fund innovation, and signal cultural value. By turning participation into measurable support, $ARTU enables a more resilient, community-owned future for digital art.
$ARTU also introduces ecosystem innovation by enabling the creation and trading of synthetic digital art indices. These indices allow users to gain exposure to broad segments of the digital art market without needing to buy individual artworks, fostering new forms of market access, collective value discovery, and liquidity across categories such as generative and AI art. This turns index tokens into cultural indicators that reflect community-curated relevance.
The first digital art index tokens are launching soon. Stay tuned for updates.
You qualify for the initial $ARTU airdrop if:
You hold digital art pieces from collections listed on Artacle (Genart and AI art categories, and CryptoPunks) at least 1 day prior to the token distribution event on the 12th of May.
Important: Make sure your receiving Base wallet has a small amount of ETH to sign the claim transaction. You can use any Base wallet you own, it doesn’t have to match your Ethereum address.
$ARTU Token
Base
0xdb85677bc9bf138687fa7b7f6c0ba3cd19eecef5
Community vesting
Base
0x7d6551cc9543f001e8d6f9cab4e616c4fc8c1ec0
Initial Airdrop
Base
0x475e0e8c0910dDc9147E5147E0404F8B3BAd34c9
All smart contracts undergo thorough auditing by reputable third-party firms to identify vulnerabilities, ensure correctness, and minimize risk to users.
To view and interact with your $ARTU tokens using a wallet, for example, MetaMask, follow these steps:
Open your MetaMask extension and make sure you're connected to the Base network.
Scroll down to the Tokens tab and click three dots menu.
Select "Import tokens".
Choose Custom token.
Select Base Mainnet network and paste the $ARTU contract address 0xdb85677bc9bf138687fa7b7f6c0ba3cd19eecef5.
MetaMask will auto-fill the token symbol and decimals.
Click "Next"
Click "Import".
You should now see your $ARTU balance in MetaMask.
$ARTU will be a multi-chain token, initially launching on Base L2 and later expanding to Solana. The total supply of the token will be 2,711,201,612. This number has a special meaning for the community.
Tokens will be gradually and linearly unlocked (vested) over 2 years for all groups of recipients, with distribution to individual recipients within 3 years post-launch. Some of the unlocked but undistributed tokens will be held in designated treasuries, such as the Community Treasury and Contributor Treasury, until finally distributed. Despite the linear vesting schedule, early participants will be getting more $ARTU through holding rewards, which will be factored into future distributions.
There are the following pools:
51% (1,382,712,822) of the tokens will be allocated to digital art community members. Of this, 11% will be airdropped and immediately claimable by eligible participants in the initial airdrop based on their art points and digital art holdings. The remaining 40% will be earned and airdropped post-launch over multiple iterations.
27.08% (734,224,842) will be allocated to past and future contributors including the development team and use case partners. At launch, 2% will be unlocked, with the remainder subject to a 6-month cliff period.
15% (406,680,241) will be allocated to founders and early sponsors and subject to a 6-month cliff period or longer depending on local regulations.
5.37% (145,560,081) will be designated for $ARTU liquidity and reserved to support the launch and liquidity provisioning of each new index token.
1.55% (42,023,625) will be allocated to advisors and subject to a 6-month cliff period or longer depending on local regulations. This group, composed of highly experienced digital art experts, will assist in developing use cases and enhancing the utility of art points and $ARTU, to ensure the benefits for the digital art economy.
The $ARTU Whitepaper provides an in-depth explanation of the token design, economic model and the role of index tokens in the broader digital art economy. Updated on the 11th of May: Tokenomics updated. Updated on the 12th of May: Refined wording.
Or you hold received by holding digital art long-term, paying royalties on sales, and purchasing listed works that include royalties.
You should be eligible if you’re currently involved with digital art or have been in the past, check here . More airdrops are on the way. If you love and collect digital art and follow original principles, you’re in. That’s what makes this the digital art patronage token.
