Once attention can be structured, measured, and distributed on-chain, it gains the fundamental conditions needed to be transformed into an asset.
By ChandlerZ, Foresight News
Over the past two years, Real-World Assets (RWA) have become the most stable growth theme in the crypto asset market. The on-chain scale of U.S. Treasuries, credit bonds, and short-term yield products continues to expand, and the capital-flow dynamics between DeFi and traditional finance have once again become predictable.
A recent report from Standard Chartered estimates that as DeFi applications in payments and investment become increasingly widespread, the market cap of non-stablecoin tokenized RWA will surpass USD 2 trillion by the end of 2028, which is far above the current USD 35 billion. Tokenized money market funds and publicly listed equities may each account for roughly USD 750 billion, with the remainder composed of funds, private equity, commodities, corporate debt, and real estate.
As the first stage of infrastructure matures, the industry is confronted with a shared question: Where will the next wave of expansion come from?
On-chain markets function fundamentally as global liquidity pools, while cultural assets naturally possess cross-regional transmissibility. Under this logic, bringing cultural assets on-chain becomes not only feasible but advantageous. Such assets do not rely on any single sovereign system, nor are they constrained by the information asymmetries of the traditional art market. Users cease to be mere spectators or collectors, and they become active participants in a value network. The boundary between culture and finance begins to blur.
The emergence of Ultiland, a Web3 platform for creative assets, is rooted in this shift. Ultiland is not positioned as a traditional art-NFT marketplace; rather, it functions as a ‘cultural asset instrument’, a tool for transforming cultural content into structured assets. Starting with art, IP, and creative works, Ultiland constructs an on-chain framework for issuance, ownership registration, circulation, and financialization, converting cultural products into asset units with sustainable transaction models.
A New RWA Narrative: Bringing Cultural and Creative Assets On-Chain
The first phase of RWA has centered on financial products such as U.S. Treasuries, real estate assets, and credit bonds. These products have well-defined cash flows and mature valuation models, making them suitable for institutional capital and high-net-worth investors. However, their underlying assets are sourced primarily through traditional financial institutions, and issuance is constrained by regulatory frameworks. Product differentiation has declined, and yields are closely tied to macro interest-rate cycles. For most on-chain users, participation is driven primarily by interest-rate arbitrage, creating a disconnect from the native participation culture of the crypto ecosystem.
At the same time, cultural, artistic, and IP assets worldwide have long remained highly valuable and illiquid. The global cultural and artistic IP market is estimated at approximately USD 6.2 trillion, yet the circulation efficiency within this massive asset pool remains low. Ownership is concentrated among a small group of collectors, institutions, and platforms. Creators rarely share in long-term secondary-market appreciation, while ordinary users have virtually no access to early value formation. This represents a classic mismatch between value and participation, where asset value is concentrated and participation rights are scarce.
The rise of the digital attention economy and the creator economy has amplified this mismatch. Increasingly, value is determined not by predictable cash flows, but by the density of user communities, the reach of network propagation, and the degree of cultural engagement. The commercial performance of content, IP, and art projects depends largely on whether users are willing to invest their time and emotions. This creates a fundamental distinction from traditional RWA, which derives value from yield curves, while cultural assets derive value from community structure and participation behavior. For a global, community-driven crypto market, cultural assets in many cases align more naturally with on-chain dynamics than certain traditional financial products.
Cultural RWAs therefore stand to become a new developmental direction. The underlying assets still originate from the real world, including artworks, IP rights, physical exhibitions, and other cultural content. The process of value discovery, however, extends beyond discounted cash-flow models and begins to incorporate narrative strength, user participation, and long-term cultural identification.
Pricing is the core challenge. Traditional art and IP markets rely on historical transaction records, authoritative institutions, and expert assessment. This structure benefits professional investors but remains highly opaque to the general public. Cultural value is inherently subjective, making it difficult to capture through a single valuation model. Ultiland approaches this by handing part of the valuation process to the market. On-chain participation, trading depth, and holding patterns become components of price discovery. Through ARToken and an innovative meme-like RWA model, Ultiland creates an experimental environment in which cultural assets can be traded and evaluated. This introduces a more open participation layer that enables cultural value to be reassessed across a larger sample.
Lowering the participation threshold is equally significant. High-value artworks and IPs have traditionally been accessible only to a limited group, often requiring millions to enter. Once fractionalized on-chain, these assets can be offered in smaller units to a much broader user base. What changes is the capital structure rather than the artwork itself. For the existing market, this means that previously closed value units are being integrated into a global liquidity pool for the first time. For the expanding market, this structure creates participation modes closer to capital markets and better aligned with crypto users’ habits of small, frequent, and diversified allocations.
Therefore, Ultiland is not simply creating a new method of selling art. Its aim is to build a complete on-chain infrastructure for cultural assets. This begins with ownership registration and issuance, continues through fractionalization and trading, and extends to long-term value transfer supported by a dual-token economic model. Viewed through the broader trajectory of RWA development, this represents a branch shaped by changes in the real economy. Traditional financial RWAs manage capital and interest rates, while cultural RWAs manage attention and identification. The asset attributes differ, yet both have the potential to operate within the same market mechanisms once they move on-chain.
Ultiland’s Core Mechanisms: On-Chain Issuance and the Value Cycle of Cultural Assets
Bringing cultural assets on-chain requires a clearly defined pathway. Ultiland approaches this through the commercial logic of art and IP, supporting on-chain issuance and full lifecycle management for a wide range of real-world assets. These include artworks, collectibles, music, intellectual property, physical assets, and non-standard equity. Users have access to a full-stack suite of services that includes token minting, asset appraisal, decentralized auctions, and AI-assisted creation tools.
The value of such assets is composed of three dimensions: cultural value, financial value, and utility value. Ultiland aims to create a unified on-chain expression for all three and establish a sustainable value cycle.
The foundational layer of Ultiland is the ARToken. This token represents a cultural or artistic asset on-chain and functions both as an expression of ownership and as the unit of market circulation. ARToken supports the issuance of artworks, antiques, design pieces, IP rights, and other assets on-chain, and its RWA Launchpad facilitates ownership registration, valuation, issuance, and trading.
Ultiland’s first publicly launched project is Emperor’s Memento Qianlong (EMQL), an art RWA project corresponding to a Doucai bottle vase (Du Ping) with floral patterns during the Qianlong period (the ‘Qianlong Vase’). This imperial kiln piece originates from a niche collector system and is reputed to have been a sentimental gift from the Qianlong Emperor to a beloved imperial consort. It carries an extremely high valuation and is currently held in custody in Hong Kong. Ultiland fractionalized the asset into one million ARToken units priced at 0.15 USDT each, granting on-chain accessibility to an asset that previously existed only within a closed market.
Another core mechanism of Ultiland emphasizes market-driven value discovery. This framework builds on its meme-like RWA model, applying the viral characteristics of memes to cultural RWAs and enabling open, early-stage market participation in value formation. Traditional art valuation relies on experts and institutions, whereas the on-chain model shifts part of this authority to the market. User participation, trading activity, and dissemination intensity serve as indicators of the cultural asset’s attention profile.
The value of cultural assets is difficult to capture through a single metric. Market sentiment can provide a form of demand-side feedback. Ultiland incorporates this feedback into its price discovery system, giving cultural assets a more active space to express their value on a global scale.
One of the most notable components of Ultiland’s structure is its ‘2 + 1’ token system, composed of ARTX, miniARTX, and user-defined ARToken. A dynamic capacity adjustment mechanism known as Variable Mining Supply Adjustment Protocol (VMSAP) is introduced to create a release pathway driven by supply and demand. According to official information, ARTX has a maximum supply of 280 million tokens. Of these, 107 million are allocated to community incentives, ecosystem development, and global airdrops, and 123 million are generated through creative mining and staking-based participation. ARTX functions as the platform’s sovereign asset used for value settlement and governance, while miniARTX serves as proof of user contribution.
The sole entry point for the release of ARTX is miniARTX.All newly released tokens must be converted through a liquidity-locked release process, establishing a closed-loop supply system. A significant portion of platform revenue flows into a buyback pool, which strengthens the liquidity and scarcity of ARTX. miniARTX is earned through user trading, creation, and promotional activities, making participation itself a source of value. For cultural assets, participation density is inherently tied to value, and this model connects the two directly.
- A 30 percent ecological tax is applied when converting miniARTX into ARTX: Ten percent is burned and twenty percent is allocated to the ecosystem incentive pool.
- On-chain transfers of miniARTX follow a ten-to-seven net flow logic, with one token burned and two allocated to the ecosystem pool to continuously support community incentives and liquidity maintenance.
- In certain incentive scenarios, the ten percent consumption from ARTX to miniARTX may be waived, and specific counterparties can receive an additional twenty percent reward distribution.
The key factor is the cost of release. Users who wish to convert miniARTX into ARTX must choose either linear release or accelerated release. Accelerated release requires additional capital and triggers a buyback. This release process continuously strengthens buying pressure for ARTX and helps establish a stable value anchor for the token system.
Ultiland has built a foundational framework of five modules around cultural assets. The RWA LaunchPad decomposes artworks, IP, and collectibles into tradable ARToken units and provides a standardized issuance pathway. All ARToken units support staking and trading mining as contribution indicators tied to participation, rewarding community-driven circulation and growth. Additional issuance models will be introduced over time. The Art AI Agent integrates generative content with on-chain price signals to provide a continuous supply of creative ideas for assets. IProtocol manages the registration, authorization, and cross-chain usage of IP, anchoring copyright and licensing relationships on-chain. The DeArt ecosystem offers auction, rating, NFT conversion, and secondary market environments, placing creation and trading within a single market system. SAE and the RWA Oracle connect off-chain custody, valuation, and data synchronization, generating trustworthy on-chain representations of real-world assets. Together, the five modules correspond to issuance, creation, ownership registration, trading, and compliance, forming a comprehensive cultural RWA infrastructure rather than a single application.
Ultiland’s Path to the Next RWA Unicorn Status
Looking at the timeline, Ultiland’s implementation has already taken on a relatively clear trajectory. Following the launch of EMQL, subscriptions progressed significantly faster than the team anticipated, with the initial round nearly selling out immediately. This outcome demonstrates strong user interest in ARToken-based cultural assets and provides direct market validation: cultural assets have genuine on-chain demand, and fractionalization can meaningfully broaden participation, shifting once-niche collectibles into a new price discovery environment. On November 26, the Qianlong Vase asset was officially transferred and will enter secondary trading after the handover is completed.
The strong market response to EMQL has laid the groundwork for Ultiland’s next phase of expansion and enabled the team to deploy resources at a larger scale. Recently, Ultiland announced the launch of the Ultiland ART FUND, totaling 10,000,000 ARTX (approximately USD 50 million). The fund aims to bring traditional artists, creators, and cultural institutions worldwide into Web3 and expand the on-chain issuance and circulation of cultural assets. It serves as Ultiland’s ‘Artistic IP Web3 Engine’ and ‘Cultural RWA Growth Pool’, focusing on four pillars: incentivizing traditional artists to participate, supporting the issuance of art-backed RWAs, facilitating ecosystem-level collaborations, and providing growth rewards for creators.
According to Ultiland, the ART FUND is expected to support over 100,000 artists, enable more than 20,000 cultural asset issuances, and accelerate the standardized Web3-based transformation of cultural content worldwide.
With core products going live, market validation achieved and supply-side resources secured, the outer boundary of the ecosystem has begun to expand. Art is only the entry point. Theoretically, IP licensing, film and music content, live events and fan economies, and even a creator’s own influence-based rights can also be fractionalized, represented, and traded under a similar framework. Cultural production is accelerating globally and the number of creators continues to grow, yet value distribution remains concentrated in platforms and a small number of top institutions. Most content cannot crystallize into tradable assets. A standardized on-chain issuance toolkit, paired with a clear rights structure, has the potential to bring these long-accumulated cultural values into a more transparent market setting.
The financialization of cultural assets has the potential to become the next cycle of RWA, not because the concept is novel but because the underlying driver is fundamentally different. Financial RWAs are constrained by interest rates, regulatory frameworks, and institutional balance-sheet cycles; their marginal growth depends heavily on macroeconomic conditions. Cultural assets, however, expand through content supply and user time, operating much like the digital attention economy. Once attention becomes measurable and distributable on-chain, it gains the prerequisites to be transformed into an asset. Crypto markets themselves are driven by high-frequency narratives and high-density participation. Cultural assets align more naturally with these dynamics than traditional credit or real-estate-based RWAs, giving cultural RWAs the opportunity to develop a parallel growth curve atop the same infrastructure.
In this sector, the cultural RWA market still lacks fully operational product ecosystems, with most projects remaining at the conceptual or single-function stage and failing to establish a complete ‘issuance—ownership registration—trading—value return’ cycle. Ultiland, however, has already developed an initial structure across mechanism design, asset issuance, user participation, and supply-side resources, and has validated it through EMQL in the real market. In such an emerging market, a platform capable of delivering a replicable model with empirical evidence naturally attracts attention as a potential unicorn.
Summary
According to the Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report, the global art market is expected to reach USD 75 billion by 2025. Innovations such as NFTs and RWAs allow artists, collectors and stakeholders to regard art both as a cultural output and as a financial instrument. Ultiland’s long-term position in this landscape will depend on its ability to consistently organize high-quality cultural asset supply, maintain a clear value recirculation framework for creators and investors, and uphold the stability of its token model through multiple market cycles. If asset issuance expands beyond individual artworks into IP, entertainment and the broader creator economy, the platform could evolve from a project operator into foundational infrastructure at the asset layer. Conversely, if the asset side remains limited or if the token cycle relies too heavily on real-time revenue, the infrastructure narrative may weaken.
Looking ahead, the on-chain evolution of cultural assets is not expected to supplant financial RWAs; rather, both are likely to operate in parallel, representing separate asset categories with distinct risk-return characteristics. Cultural RWAs may be more volatile but are closely tied to user participation, while financial RWAs are more stable and institution-friendly. Ultiland is currently developing a platform to support large-scale experimentation with cultural assets. Should a relatively mature cultural RWA sector emerge in the coming years, initiatives of this type could well be recognized as early-stage prototypes of its foundational infrastructure.
