Foundation (blockchain company)

Foundation is a platform that aims to build a new creative economy—a world where creators can use the Ethereum blockchain to value their work in entirely new ways, and build stronger connections with their supporters.

Foundation bridges crypto and culture to foster a network of mutual support between creators and collectors. We’re forging a community-driven path and sharing our tools with the rapidly evolving group of developers who are excited to define this future with us. We want anyone and everyone who cares about the future of digital expression to be a part of it.

The artists in our debut collection are well-established in both the contemporary art and crypto worlds. They have pieces in world-class art museums, they’ve worked with leading global brands, and they’ve invented new technologies and approaches to artmaking itself. Some have released NFTs already. For others, this is their very first time minting a token.

All of this amounts to an unprecedented opportunity to own works by artists who will be big in the NFT space for years to come.

The works in today’s release were selected by Lindsay Howard, Foundation’s Head of Community. Lindsay has been a pioneering curator specializing in digital art for over a decade, with exhibitions at New Museum, Museum of the Moving Image, and Phillips Auction House. Here’s her take:

“Digital art is inherently anti-establishment. It rejects the status quo, defying market standards, overriding frameworks for display, and interrogating ideas around scarcity, ownership, and value. This makes digital art exciting—but it also presents challenges for creators who want to monetize their work.

In the last few months, buyer interest in NFTs has exploded, and it’s been thrilling to see that translate into more support for digital artists.

We’re now entering a whole new era of art collecting. The blockchain’s recording of provenance and ownership allows an artwork to be freely accessed and keeps the community-driven ethos of digital art alive. It also makes it possible to fairly compensate artists for their work, while opening up a new collector’s market that promises to be quite lucrative, especially for early adopters.

NFTs will be huge for artists and for the collectors who get in first.

We’re excited about what this launch will mean for artists. But it also presents a huge opportunity for collectors.

For our debut NFT collection, we’ve selected acclaimed artists with established followings and sales records. Even if you’re not familiar with an artist, you can be sure that they’re on our platform because their work is of the highest quality—and because we expect its value to appreciate over time. Everything on our platform is fully authenticated and 100% legitimate, which means buyers can purchase with confidence.

This collection will give buyers the opportunity to build a reputation as an early adopter in the digital art world. Soon, buyers will be able to share collections publicly and establish themselves as tastemakers in the community. They’ll also have a voice in how Foundation develops over time, because as we see it, investing in artists is an investment in our platform.

For Creators

Creators are invited to join Foundation by members of the community. Once you’ve received an invite, you’ll need to set up a wallet with ETH before you can create an artist profile and mint an NFT—which means uploading your artworks to a decentralized peer-to-peer storage network. It will then be an NFT you can price in ETH and put up for auction or a private sale on Foundation. When an artwork is sold on the primary market, creators receive 85% of the final sale price. If an NFT is listed and collected again on the secondary market, a 10% royalty is automatically sent to the creator who originally minted the NFT—in perpetuity.

For Collectors

On Foundation, anyone can create a profile to start collecting NFTs. All you’ll need is a MetaMask wallet and ETH, the cryptocurrency used to pay for all transactions on Ethereum. Artists list NFTs for auction at a reserve price, and once the first bid is placed, a 24-hour auction countdown begins. If a bid is placed within the last 15 minutes, the auction extends for another 15 minutes. When you win an auction and claim the NFT, the NFT gets transferred to your wallet and appears on your Foundation collector profile. You can also then display it in your virtual gallery, share it on social media, sell it later on the secondary market, or pioneer a new approach to appreciating digital art and championing the artists in your collection.

For the Community

There are many ways to get involved with Foundation beyond joining as a creator, collector, or developer. We welcome anyone interested in collectively building the future of digital culture to join us on Instagram or Twitter. There are a number of community-led initiatives and events that you can plug into, participate in, and even imagine new possibilities for. We actively encourage community members to create new groups based around their interests.

For Developers

We love collaborating, and invite developers to experiment with our free and open API.