From Collector to Shareholder: NFTs Enter Numismatics

output: From Collector to Shareholder: NFTs Enter Numismatics

A 1934 $100,000 Gold Certificate is now being split into 500 NFT shares—marking a new frontier in numismatic investing through blockchain technology.

Richard Giedroyc

Marketing of rare coins may be about to change now that shares in a unique bank note are being offered through a non-fungible token or NFT. To the uninitiated, an NFT appears to be another form of electronic or digital cash that competes with coins, bank notes, checks, debit cards, and more to be used as a substitute for traditional currency. An NFT is actually fungible, meaning it can be traded for something else of equal value, including being interchangeable with other NFTs.

NFTs are considered to be specialized speculative assets. NFTs can represent assets including digital content, fine art, videos, and now a one-of-a-kind uniface specimen Series 1934 $100,000 Gold Certificate. This NFT, as with all others, is secured with blockchain technology. And, as with all others, the pledged asset is not the NFT, but something that is stored elsewhere.

Joint ownership in the note is now being offered through Kagins Inc. and Vici Network. This isn’t the first time a share in a numismatic item or portfolio has been offered; however, due to this being offered through an NFT, it brings forward the idea of investing in rather than collecting very expensive numismatic objects.

Most people familiar with investing in numismatic material will agree that a long-term rather than a short-term strategy needs to be recognized. The idea of taking a single but valuable numismatic item, allowing ownership to be split into many pieces (500 NFT shares will be offered both individually and bundled), and using an NFT as the vehicle through which the investment can be made may not just open the doors but it may open the floodgates to making similar offerings on some classic rarities that normally would be out of reach of the average collector.