Ultiland is creating a new RWA track: the evolution from cultural assets to market unicorns

As the crypto market faces a new growth ceiling, a seemingly niche direction is brewing enormous opportunities—the on-chain tokenization of cultural assets. As a leading project in this track, Ultiland is demonstrating with concrete cases: when artworks, IP, and creative content are sliced into tradable on-chain assets, a market once owned by a few collectors is evolving into a brand-new RWA (Real-World Asset) sub-sector at a unicorn level.

Cultural RWA: An Overlooked Trillion-Dollar Market Gap

The latest report from standard licensed banks indicates that by 2028, the tokenized RWA market excluding stablecoins will surpass $2 trillion, far exceeding the current $35 billion. However, this growth is mainly concentrated in traditional financial assets—government bonds, corporate bonds, money market funds, etc.

Where is the real growth potential? The answer points to a long-underestimated field: the global cultural asset market, valued at approximately $6.2 trillion, but facing severe liquidity shortages.

This is not a numerical problem but a structural one. The traditional art market is monopolized by a few institutions and platforms controlling pricing power, with 98% of artworks and IP locked in the hands of high-net-worth individuals. Ordinary participants face two barriers: first, high entry costs (often in the millions), and second, zero opportunities to influence pricing. Artists are even worse off—the value they create earns them minimal returns when traded in secondary markets.

Meanwhile, on-chain capital is growing rapidly. The liquidity accumulated in the DeFi ecosystem has proven that global users crave transparent, divisible, and tradable asset models. Cultural assets on the chain have an even more obvious advantage over traditional financial assets—they inherently rely on community consensus and engagement, which is exactly in the DNA of the crypto ecosystem.

Ultiland’s Breakthrough: Reconstructing Art Valuation through Mechanism Design

Ultiland’s core innovation is not just a simple NFT art platform but a comprehensive on-chain infrastructure for cultural assets. From asset ownership confirmation, issuance, and price discovery to long-term value transfer, there are systematic mechanisms supporting each step.

Key Logic of the ARToken System

The project introduces a three-layer tokenization design:

• ARToken: Represents a specific artwork or IP, divisible infinitely. In the EMQL case, a Qing Qianlong-era blue-and-white porcelain vase was divided into 1 million ARTokens, each costing only 0.15 USDT, instantly bringing assets previously accessible only to a few into the global liquidity pool.
• ARTX: The main ecosystem token, with a total supply of 280 million, of which 123 million are released through creative mining and staking, used for value settlement and governance.
• miniARTX: Proof of user contribution, the only channel to unlock ARTX. This design is crucial—it makes participation itself a source of value.

Self-Reinforcing Dual-Token Mechanism

Exchanging miniARTX for ARTX requires paying a 30% ecosystem tax, of which 10% is burned and 20% goes into an incentive pool. This is not just an inflation buffer but a closed-loop for value recovery:

• Buying back ARTX triggers a buy-and-burn process
• On-chain transfers follow a 10→7 rule (burn 1 token, 2 tokens into the incentive pool)
• Tokens flowing into the incentive pool are used to maintain liquidity and community incentives

The core mechanism is: the release of miniARTX is fully tied to user behavior (trading, creation, promotion). The higher the participation, the more is released. Various frictions and taxes during the release process reinforce the scarcity of ARTX in a reverse manner.

Market Validation: Market Feedback from EMQL and HP59

No matter how good the theory, trading data is essential. Two early cases from Ultiland provide market answers.

EMQL—The First On-Chain Democratization of Feudal Art

The Qing Qianlong porcelain vase case seems “niche,” but its significance is huge. The artifact was stored offline in Hong Kong as a private collection with a very limited scope. Ultiland’s approach was:

• Move ownership confirmation, asset valuation, on-chain mapping, and price discovery entirely on-chain
• Divide into 1 million parts, each costing 0.15 USDT
• The first round of purchase nearly sold out instantly

What does this validate? Decentralizing pricing power alone can activate demand. When a market previously accessible only to professional institutions suddenly opens to ordinary users, participation exceeds expectations.

HP59—A Social Engine for Creative Assets

Released on November 3, HP59 is a digital artwork created by Wu Songbo, designer of the 2022 Winter Olympics emblem. After release, it once surged 7.78 times. What does this indicate? The value of artworks is not solely determined by historical transaction records or expert ratings but also by the current community’s recognition of its cultural identity.

ART FUND: From Experiment to Scale

On November 26, Ultiland announced the launch of a $50 million ART FUND, targeting the on-chain migration of 100,000 traditional artists and issuance of over 20,000 cultural assets. This is not just a fundraising announcement but a strategic signal of expansion.

The fund’s four clear directions:

1. Invite traditional artists and cultural institutions into Web3
2. Support issuance processes for art asset RWAs
3. Promote cooperation and interaction within the ecosystem
4. Reward long-term creator participation

In other words, Ultiland is investing real resources to transform the art industry chain—from production (artists), issuance infrastructure (tokenization), to liquidity (trading mechanisms)—laying the tracks.

Why Ultiland Will Become a Unicorn in This Track

The cultural asset RWA market has no mature product system yet. Most competitors remain at the conceptual or single-function level, while Ultiland has built a complete five-module infrastructure:

• RWA LaunchPad: Standard entry point for asset issuance
• Art AI Agent: Combines generative content with on-chain price signals
• IProtocol: On-chain registration, licensing, and cross-chain use of IP
• DeArt Ecosystem: Auction, rating, and trading markets
• SAE and RWA Oracle: Offline storage, asset valuation, and data synchronization

These are not five separate applications but an interconnected system.

From market dynamics, cultural RWA has three advantages over financial RWA:

1. Different growth drivers: Financial RWA depends on macro interest rates and institutional expansion; cultural RWA mainly depends on content supply and user engagement—closer to internet market logic.
2. Higher participant density: Creative workers, fan economies, and community culture are naturally high-activity on-chain users, with participation rates higher than bond investors.
3. More transparent value discovery: On-chain trading depth, community discussions, and holding distributions can more accurately reflect real-time demand, rather than relying on expert ratings and trading history.

Risks and Realities

However, honesty is needed: this path also has pitfalls.

Ultiland’s success as a true unicorn depends on three points:

• Sustainable supply: Can it steadily introduce high-quality artworks and IP, rather than accumulating low-quality assets?
• Transparency of value flow: Are the returns to investors and creators genuinely visible, and can long-term incentives be maintained?
• Resilience of token models: During multiple market cycles, can the mechanisms of ARTX and miniARTX remain stable?

Conclusion

The global art market is valued at $75 billion, but this figure is deceptive—it only reflects the value of already traded assets. The true potential market is at least ten times larger. Ultiland is working to break this structural inefficiency and unlock the long-frozen value of cultural assets.

From single cases to large-scale issuance, from experimental mechanisms to ecosystem infrastructure, Ultiland is building a new RWA sub-sector. If cultural asset tokenization becomes a mainstream narrative alongside financial RWAs in the coming years, then the project’s unicorn status today is not an overestimate but a normal market recognition of a leading new track.