Indonesian government looks to NFTs to preserve cultural heritage

One of the pri­ma­ry ben­e­fits of blockchain tech­nol­o­gy is the abil­i­ty to record and cap­ture infor­ma­tion in a per­ma­nent, tam­per-proof record. Once data is on a blockchain net­work, it can­not be altered, mak­ing it an ide­al solu­tion for record-keeping. 

Tok­enized assets, such as non­fun­gi­ble tokens (NFTs), can also be placed on a blockchain. This can ver­i­fy own­er­ship while demon­strat­ing that cer­tain events occurred at par­tic­u­lar times. For exam­ple, the Meta His­to­ry Muse­um tok­enized data from the war in Ukraine in May 2022, plac­ing the infor­ma­tion on a blockchain net­work to pre­serve records of the war.

Ensur­ing that spe­cif­ic events take place is also becom­ing more impor­tant than ever due to the rise of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) and its abil­i­ty to gen­er­ate deep fakes, along with his­tor­i­cal images that may appear realistic. 

NFTs for preserving cultural heritage

Pre­serv­ing infor­ma­tion using decen­tral­ized tech­nolo­gies is gain­ing trac­tion. For instance, Muham­mad Neil El Himam, deputy chair­man for dig­i­tal econ­o­my and cre­ative prod­ucts in Indonesia’s Min­istry of Tourism and Cre­ative Econ­o­my, told Coin­tele­graph that he recent­ly formed a part­ner­ship with Quan­tum Tem­ple — a tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny using NFTs for preser­va­tion — to help main­tain the country’s cul­tur­al her­itage. Himam explained that NFTs could ensure that her­itage can be pre­served and cre­at­ed with­out limits: 

“I believe that NFTs can con­tribute to pre­serv­ing Indonesia’s cul­tur­al her­itage while enhanc­ing vir­tu­al tourism. NFTs may also be a medi­um in ush­er­ing in the next bil­lion users into the cryp­to space, espe­cial­ly if the NFT ele­ments of the cul­tur­al her­itage are well-known and appreciated.”

Lin­da Ada­mi, CEO of Quan­tum Tem­ple, told Coin­tele­graph that her firm devel­oped a mul­ti­chain NFT mar­ket­place to bring cul­tur­al her­itage and tourism to the Ethereum and Algo­rand blockchain net­works. Ada­mi explained that the plat­form is work­ing close­ly with Indonesia’s Min­istry of Tourism and Cre­ative Econ­o­my to tok­enize tan­gi­ble and intan­gi­ble cul­tur­al her­itage as unique dig­i­tal assets.

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“Dig­i­tal rep­re­sen­ta­tions include tra­di­tion­al cer­e­monies, crafts­man­ship, and knowl­edge of nature and our uni­verse, but also musi­cal and oral expres­sions, dances and pil­grim­ages. By tok­eniz­ing cul­tur­al her­itage, three crit­i­cal areas of val­ue are cre­at­ed: immutable archives of cul­ture, trans­par­ent alter­na­tive income streams through roy­al­ties, ver­i­fied prove­nance and recog­ni­tion for cul­tur­al cre­ators,” she stated.

On March 21, 2023, Quan­tum Tem­ple launched its “Paths to Alangö” NFT col­lec­tion at L’Atelier des Lumières in Paris, France, dur­ing Paris Blockchain Week. “The col­lec­tion includes 11 unique NFTs that rep­re­sent dif­fer­ent aspects of Bali­nese cul­tur­al her­itage, such as dances, tem­ples, land­scapes and phi­los­o­phy. The NFTs are cre­at­ed by local artists and cul­tur­al her­itage experts,” Ada­mi said. 

Ada­mi said that tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tions such as blockchain could play a sig­nif­i­cant role in address­ing key chal­lenges with­in a country’s cul­tur­al sector. 

“Authen­tic­i­ty and qual­i­ty are fun­da­men­tal to cul­tur­al heritage’s tan­gi­ble and intan­gi­ble val­ue. Blockchain can be used to cre­ate an immutable and invalu­able record that rec­og­nizes author­ship and guar­an­tees the authen­tic­i­ty and prove­nance of cre­ative assets,” Ada­mi remarked. 

Har­ry Halpin, CEO and co-founder of decen­tral­ized pri­va­cy plat­form Nym, told Coin­tele­graph that doc­u­ment­ing things like cul­tur­al arti­facts is becom­ing crit­i­cal to pre­vent manip­u­la­tion. Accord­ing to Halpin, blockchain tech­nol­o­gy is one of the best ways to ensure this, not­ing that Nym has been work­ing with the decen­tral­ized stor­age provider File­coin to doc­u­ment war crimes on its blockchain net­work.

With this poten­tial in mind, Himam believes that it is high­ly like­ly oth­er regions will incor­po­rate blockchain ele­ments in the future. “Indone­sia is just one exam­ple of many devel­op­ing coun­tries that have begun to explore the poten­tial of these tech­nolo­gies,” he said. 

Challenges remain

While tok­enized dig­i­tal assets could be a solu­tion for pre­serv­ing impor­tant infor­ma­tion, reg­u­la­to­ry and tech­ni­cal chal­lenges may ham­per adop­tion. For instance, while Himam is bull­ish on blockchain tech­nol­o­gy, he not­ed that reg­u­la­to­ry uncer­tain­ty with­in the region might cre­ate friction. 

Himam said that Indonesia’s Com­mod­i­ty Futures Trad­ing Reg­u­la­to­ry Agency con­trols how blockchain tech­nol­o­gy is applied domes­ti­cal­ly. “Cryp­to assets are cat­e­go­rized as a com­mod­i­ty that can be used as the sub­ject of futures con­tracts trad­ed on an exchange,” he said. How­ev­er, he added that as Indone­sia begins to imple­ment more blockchain use cas­es, the gov­ern­ment will start to estab­lish clear reg­u­la­tions and poli­cies on how decen­tral­ized tech­nolo­gies could be applied. 

It’s also notable that Indonesia’s nation­al cryp­to exchange is sched­uled to be com­plet­ed in June 2023. Accord­ing to Himam, Indone­sia is show­ing clear inter­est in cryp­tocur­ren­cy adop­tion. “The coun­try has cre­at­ed reg­u­la­tions around cryp­tocur­ren­cies and is encour­ag­ing their use,” he said. 

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How­ev­er, Indonesia’s tech­ni­cal infra­struc­ture could cre­ate chal­lenges for projects using decen­tral­ized net­works. Himam point­ed out that blockchain-based tech­nolo­gies require spe­cial­ized infra­struc­ture, such as dig­i­tal wal­lets, which may not be wide­ly avail­able in cer­tain areas in Indone­sia. This, cou­pled with the fact that most Web3 projects require skilled pro­fes­sion­als, could result in slow region­al innovation. 

Despite the chal­lenges, Quan­tum Temple’s Ada­mi believes that Asian insti­tu­tions may be the fur­thest along in under­stand­ing blockchain-based use cas­es. “The Indone­sian Min­istry of Tourism and Cre­ative Econ­o­my lead­er­ship under­stands how NFTs could offer a new fund­ing mod­el for the cul­tur­al and cre­ative sec­tor while also pro­tect­ing the intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights of artists,” she remarked.