The NFT Archaeology work basically started from Ethereum in its early days, then the focus moved on to Bitcoin/Counterparty assets. But, the virtual archaeologists didn't stop there and looked at even obscure old blockchains (mostly defunct today) in depth. NFT fractionalization has recently become popular, which means that a single non-fungible token (NFT) is divided into multiple "fungible tokens" for shared ownership and community building. Generally, this is reserved for high-end assets and those with cultural or historical significance, usually expensive. But, this trend started in 2014 on a blockchain called NXT. Meet NXTdrop - the world's first fractionalized oil painting!

Official Website: http://nxtdrop.blogspot.com/

NXT Forum Post: https://nxtforum.org/general-discussion/nxtdrop-first-decentralized-oil-painting/

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Art/comments/25teho/worlds_1st_decentralized_oil_painting_nxtdrop/

Bitcointalk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=617211.0

Physical Copy Offered For Buying On: http://www.zazzle.co.uk/nxtdrop-192220428038122694 (defunct)

NXT Asset ID: 2751500054965016187

Total Number Of Shares: 100,000

Asset Deployment Time: 14 May 2014 at 4:47:31

Account Of Generation: NXT-V5JC-2WXJ-LHPL-8E5JZ

NXTdrop was the world's first fractionalized oil painting with the NXTdrop token representing shares of ownership in the oil painting. It was deployed on 14 May 2014 in the early morning at 4:47:3 as recorded on the NXT blockchain. This makes it number third oldest NFTs on all blockchains- only preceded by the Thing (second NFT on Bitcoin/Counterparty) by 1 month 1 week (mint date 07 Apr 2014) and the Test (first NFT on Bitcoin/Counterparty) by 4 months (mint date 13 Jan 2014).

There are 100,000 shares in total, with very few available on the NXT exchange for obvious reasons. It was offered for sale in the world's first (again) Initial Painting Offering (IPO) at 1 NXT per share, immediately after minting, and completely sold out one day after it was minted on 15 May 2014. The official description reads:

"NXTdrop" is the worlds first decentralized oil painting. To have an possibility to follow this paintings value in realtime and to have it as an decentralized asset; is totally a new concept in the world of fine art. I am looking forward to ship this painting over to the NXT-team to take it in a very public places and to take a good care of it. Hopefully, some day, it will find its way to a nice (modern art) museum. More info available in: http://nxtdrop.blogspot.fi/

Ahead of its time? You bet! We are talking 2014 and hence astronomical historical value! This painting and the IPO event combined two firsts - NXTdrop was the first time an NFT was fractionalized and it was the first time that the fractionalized shares of ownership were offered for sale. We have no idea where the actual painting and the creator are, but there are still some for sale on the NXT asset exchange, which in the future might be embedded into an Emblem Vault and brought over to OpenSea.

When Non-Fungible Tokens first came to life, people couldn't understand what they stand for and couldn't care less. The concept was hard to grasp, and daily practices couldn't be seen and understood. When their prices boomed, on the other hand, everyone rushed in and tried to buy any piece of hyped NFT. Today, there's a new concept that is set to revolutionize NFTs and bring them to the masses: Fractionalized NFTs. What are they and how will they help NFTs have real-world use cases?

In order to first understand what Fractionalized NFTs are, it is important to really know what NFTs are. In short, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are basically digital ownerships tokens, that run on blockchains that support smart-contracts, such as Ethereum. Their non-fungibility is similar to real-world contracts, where you can’t trade one contract to another, because the “actual content” differs from each other.

As an example, imagine you have a building. You can't tear it down into two pieces and split it with your wife, as it will lose its value. This building is "one building". That's why we call them non-fungible, as you can't interchange them because their underlying “contract” changes with each one, hence their non-fungible nature.

Now let's take that very same example of a building. Fractionalized NFTs allow you to split "ownership" of the building with your wife, without destroying that building into two. The building stays the same, but now contracts arise giving a specific ownership percentage to you, and another percentage to your wife...perfect, for your wife!

Fractionalized NFTs allow contracts that split ownership of anything digital. This is a game-changer, as traditionally we reverted back to centralized entities to preserve our rights. With FNFTs, no need to go to your ol' public notary guy as everything resides on the blockchain, 24/7. This also allows for automation and opens up a whole new different field. From investing to real estate, to gaming and art...NFT applications are coming big time!

While current crypto trends are a bit hard to predict, fractionalized NFTs are definitely an interesting area to explore. They bring real-world use cases and solve daily problems that occur across all countries. Those applications range from a variety of different facets:

• Traceable and provable ownership
• Copyrights and trademarks
• Easy rights management
• Liquid market that enables uncomplicated processes
• Cross-border transactions
• Automated decision-making (the future is here!)
• Enabling an open and shared economy

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Rudy Fares