- The Lobkwicz noble family uses blockchain technology to preserve and restore familial artifacts.
- The family inherited artifacts stolen by the Nazis during World War II and Communists in the 1990s.
- The family has funded more than 50 art restoration projects and raised $300,000 through NFT sales.
Czech Prince William Rudolf Lobkowicz reportedly uses NFTs, cryptocurrency and the metaverseto regain ownership of his noble family’s stolen past.
His family had inherited artifacts and property stolen twice by two different authoritarian regimes – once by the Nazis during World War II and again in the early 1990s by the Communist Party, by CNBC.
According to CNBC, the family inherited “three castles, a palace, 20,000 movable artifacts, a library of approximately 65,000 rare books, 5,000 musical artifacts and compositions — including an early copy of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony — and 30,000 boxes and folios, some of which were never opened.”
Lobkowicz’s father, William Sr., also traveled throughout the former Czechoslovakia to regain his family heritage.
“Our objects were taken to more than 100 locations, so we crossed Czechoslovakia to recover tens of thousands of movable objects,” Lobkowicz’s father told CNBC. “We’ve probably traveled hundreds of thousands of miles.”
But now Lobkowicz is experimenting with different strategies to incorporate blockchain technology to preserve his family heritage and restore artifacts they inherited, CNBC reported.
According to CNBC, the noble family keeps images of their inherited paintings to be restored as an NFT and sets the price of the token accordingly at the cost of restoration.
“It’s not just about selling NFTs to support cultural monuments, but it’s also about how we can preserve our history?” the prince told CNBC. “Blockchain technology provides an immutable record of our cultural heritage, which you can keep on the chain, and that is something that has never been done before.”
At the end of the restoration, the person who purchases the NFT will receive a second digital possession of the restored painting by CNBC.
According to the outlet, the family has funded more than 50 art restoration projects and raised $300,000 through NFT sales.
The outlet reported that, in addition to proving the young princes’ patronage business model, Lobkowicz plans to experiment with other blockchain technology, most notably in an upcoming episode of a non-functioning castle that will run from November 4-5. in Prague, according to CNBC.
The family has also used blockchain technology to restore more than just paintings.
Lobkowicz has also teamed up with Somnium, a virtual reality metaverse built on the Ethereum blockchain, to upload to the metaverse a three-month restoration of the Chinese Belvedere room in one of their palaces in Prague and sell it to a famous crypto influencer known as Oxb1 for $79,000.
“I don’t think what I’m doing now is any different from my predecessors. Each prince did something completely different based on the time they lived in,” he told CNBC.