The Return of Cultural Stewardship

In a time when art is increasingly reduced to financial speculation, algorithmic feeds, or ephemeral hype, Wunder offers something more grounded — and more enduring.

Wunder is a protocol for shared cultural ownership. It reimagines the role of the art patron, the gallery, the museum, and the collector in a world where digital and physical boundaries are fluid, and access is as important as possession.

But Wunder is not just about owning art. It is about caring for it together.

Through a carefully designed system of co-ownership, transparent terms, ethical resale, and museum-quality replicas, Wunder enables a new generation of Angel Patrons to step into the historical role of cultural stewards — not to own for power, but to share for meaning.

Why Wunder, Why Now?

We are living through a period of rapid transformation in the art world:

• Museums and cultural institutions face budget cuts and political pressure.

• Artists struggle to find sustainable income models beyond one-off sales.

• Digital art, once dismissed, now demands legitimacy — but NFTs introduced more problems than they solved.

Wunder enters at this moment not as a reaction, but as a refinement. It blends the integrity of historical patronage with the flexibility of digital formats, offering an inclusive platform where co-ownership is not only possible — it is principled, enforceable, and emotionally meaningful.

At a time when trust in markets is low and culture is in flux, Wunder offers a new foundation — one based on community, ethics, and long-term care.

Historic Proof of Concept - The First Patron Protocol Co-Ownership Artwork

The Absence of Presence – A World First (2018–2019)

Long before Wunder became a platform and Patron Protocol v2, it was a working idea — tested in real-world conditions. In late 2018 and early 2019, a globally pioneering transaction was executed on the EOS blockchain:

• The artist Dragoș Alexandrescu editioned a digital video artwork titled "The Absence of Presence" using a co-ownership structure.

• The work was tokenized and made available to the first Angel Patrons, Swiss legal advidor to the project, Ms. Catrina Luchsinger and the renowed Art Collection from the ING Bank (HQ) in Amsterdam through a smart contract governed by an early version of the Patron Protocol

• The access layer was secured by an identity-bound wallet system — a forerunner of today’s iPass ID and the application layer secured by the work and terms-bound vaut system — a forerunner of today’s ArtLock ID

• This marked the first time globally that a digitally native artwork was offered through a protocol-based, legal co-ownership model

Timeline

2016: Developed the Patron Protocol Web3 ecosystem for digitally native art.

2018: Developed the artpass ID. First reusable WEB3 AML compliant digital ID & wallet.

2019: The first co-ownership art-based asset tokens minted and transacted on the EOS Blockchain.

2025: Wunder 2.0

References

• ING Art Collection Feature: Wunder x Alexandrescu

• EOS Viewer Link: The Absence of Presence on Wunder

• EOS Wallet: artpassidnet

• Artist Wallet: alexandrescu

• Hiscox online art trade report (2019)

• Deloitte Art & Finance Report (2019)

• TEFAF Art Patronage in the 21st century (2020)

• Manuel Charr, ING Collection Purchases Fractional Shares in Artwork, MuseumNext. (2019)

• Lauren Stix, How Blockchain Could Change the Museum Industry, MuseumNext. (2019)