This page gathers sustained research into what remains of tokenised digital art following the collapse of the speculative NFT market. The research is articulated around a triadic framework—provenance, persistence, and recognition—which is not a speculative proposal but the conceptual formalisation of criteria applied since 2021 in my own curatorial and collecting practice.
The series consists of three entries published as a public notebook, a presentation extending the analysis towards current trends, and an academic consolidation paper deposited on Zenodo. The collection operates as a methodological unit, where each piece performs a distinct function: the entries address specific cases and construct the framework from the ground up; the presentation looks forward and articulates the trends that the framework enables one to discern; the paper consolidates the theoretical position for academic and professional circulation.
The research is ongoing. It is updated as new cases, data, and reformulations of the framework itself emerge.
The research articulates with KChain, a complementary line that technically materialises the conditions of provenance and persistence that this framework identifies as necessary. Both lines operate on distinct layers of the same infrastructural problem.
Background and author's position
The research is constructed from a situated position. Since 2021, my professional practice has operated continuously across three complementary fronts: the collection of native digital art through the Esteban-Ruiz Collection; institutional work at the Kripties Foundation, where I have developed expert assessment protocols applied to tokenised digital art; and participation in public mechanisms of professional validation, such as the Samsung Digital Art Awards in Spain and Portugal, for which I served as a juror in the inaugural edition alongside Javier Mariscal, Javier Arrés, and Fernando Carmona.
This trajectory is not invoked here as a curriculum vitae, but as a condition of possibility for the research itself. The triadic framework is not a speculative construction: it is the conceptual formalisation of criteria that were already operating in real decisions regarding acquisition, custody, and validation during the post-NFT cycle. That these criteria are now offered as an analytical framework for public circulation implies opening the practice itself to verification, critique, and use by other professionals in the field.
Detailed background—exhibitions, juries, presentations, publications—is available in the corresponding section of this website.
The series. Three entries, one framework
The three entries were published in 2026, in this order and under a common tag that allows them to be read as a single unit. Each entry develops a dimension of the framework through one or two verifiable cases, and all are articulated as chapters of the same research.
I. Provenance. The romainiti case
First entry. Examines provenance in digital art as a fragile composite of heterogeneous layers—chain, archive, metadata, curatorial context, maintenance capacity—through the case of the Iranian artist romainiti following the closure of Foundation. The entry introduces a key distinction: provenance is not an attribute of the token, but a construction that requires continuous maintenance between actors with asymmetric responsibilities. It includes technical analysis of the NFT, anatomy of the Foundation–Transient migration, and the artist's subsequent decision to continue on OBJKT via Tezos.
II. Persistence. Archive, custody, and duration of digital art
Second entry. Addresses the durability of digital work beyond ad-hoc rescue. It breaks down persistence into three layers—technical, institutional, hermeneutic—and examines available custody models: fully on-chain, Arweave, IPFS, artist-owned contract. It develops two cases: the institutional conservation of Rhizome ArtBase as a long-term reference, and the Hic et Nunc → Teia transition as a model of distributed custody sustained by an organised community.
III. Recognition. Institutions, market, and canon
Third entry. It articulates recognition as a process distributed among institutions, the market, criticism, and communities. It develops three paradigmatic cases: the Centre Pompidou acquisition in 2023 as an institutional case that explicitly formulates the distinction between a certificate, an off-chain work, and an on-chain work; the ongoing canonisation of Rafaël Rozendaal as an example of heterogeneous validation operating in complementary circuits; and Bright Moments as an infrastructure for distributed recognition outside the classical institutional circuit. It closes the series by articulating the complete triadic framework and anticipating its academic consolidation.
Presentation. Towards the horizon of the field
The three entries describe the field up to the present. The presentation makes the complementary move: based on the already consolidated framework, it proposes a prospective reading. Its central thesis is that the institutional question regarding digital art is shifting: from the problem of storage and technical custody towards the question of which blockchain networks deserve to be recognised as legitimate infrastructure for long-term cultural heritage.
The argument is built upon three axes: an analysis of the fully on-chain model as a technical horizon where current constraints—cost, rendering capacity—become less relevant with the development of L2 layers and on-chain computing architectures; two case studies that illuminate opposite poles of the field’s trajectory (Elman Mansimov and the reclassification of alignDRAW as a collectible work years after its existence as a technical artefact, and Refik Anadol as a case of sustained institutional canonisation culminating in the opening of his own institution, DATALAND, in 2026); and the open question of how institutional consensus will be constructed regarding which blockchains operate as legitimate infrastructure for long-term digital art.
The full version of the presentation will be delivered in an academic-professional format and will be made available on this page following its first public presentation.
Academic paper. Consolidation for Zenodo
The complete series, alongside the presentation, shall be consolidated into an academic paper for deposition in Zenodo under an open licence, featuring a DOI and versioning architecture that permits future updates without loss of citability. The paper does not replace or summarise the entries: it rewrites them in an academic register, integrates the prospective perspective of the presentation, and formalises the triadic framework for circulation within university and professional circuits.
🔗 Academic DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20142243
Aggregated sources for the series
The bibliography and links utilised throughout the three entries are available in an aggregated format, free of duplicates and categorised, in the PDF attached to this page. Sources include primary institutional documentation (Centre Pompidou, MoMA, LACMA, Tate, Rhizome, ZKM), technical infrastructure (Arweave, IPFS, Tezos, OBJKT, Art Blocks, Teia), specialist criticism (Right Click Save, Furtherfield, Outland), verified market data (Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Phillips, DappRadar), and the author’s professional background.
How to cite this research
Should you utilise any element of this series in your own work, you may cite the series as a whole or each piece separately as the context requires.
Cite the complete series:
Esteban, Juan A. (2026). Arte digital post-NFT. Infraestructura, archivo y reconocimiento. Cuaderno público. https://juanesteban.art/investigacion/post-nft/
Cite an individual entry:
Esteban, Juan A. (2026). Arte digital post-NFT. I. Procedencia. El caso romainiti. Cuaderno público. https://juanesteban.art/arte-digital-post-nft-infraestructura-archivo-y-reconocimiento/
Cite the preprint:
Esteban, Juan A. Arte digital post-NFT. Procedencia, persistencia, reconocimiento. Zenodo. DOI 10.5281/zenodo.20142243, https://zenodo.org/records/20142244