Innovation is what drives creativity and progress. Before Steve Jobs, Apple was a computer company; with Steve Jobs, it became an iconic lifestyle brand.

Technological advances, however, aren’t the only vehicles for innovation. Frederick Law Olmsted turned a swampland into Central Park; Martin Luther King Junior harnessed nonviolent civil disobedience to advance the civil rights movement; and Prince used music to explore the full range of human emotions.

Innovation can also be found in how we protect and preserve cultural heritage. For centuries, the exchange of tangible and intangible heritage has been a cornerstone of human civilization and an essential conduit for preserving cultural knowledge. However, in today’s global economy, how can we ensure that these traditions are preserved equitably and sustainably in perpetuity?

This is the problem Quantum Temple is working to solve with local and ancestral communities by leveraging Web3 technology. Quantum Temple is a platform preserving cultural heritage, enabling equitable exchanges between conscious collectors and ancestral communities.

Through blockchain technology, we are creating a decentralized record of cultural heritage and marketplace where digital, physical, and experiential NFTs — that encode expressions of cultural heritage — can be freely exchanged to amplify the stories of culture keepers and raise awareness and recognition of their knowledge, traditions, and art forms.

Three key areas of value that Web3 technology brings to Quantum Temple are working regenerative funding for creatives, immutable archives of history and culture, and regenerative income and transparency.

Working Capital for Creatives

The creative cultural sector is the second largest employer in the developing world, yet most cultural workers earn salaries below the global extreme poverty line (US $2/day). As a consequence, part of the young generations of ancestral communities have less financial incentive to keep involved in their family traditions, and important cultural heritage is at risk of being lost forever.

Using Web3 technology, Quantum Temple is providing a new model to local governments to help them drive the economic resilience of their culture in a transparent and quantifiable way. We are accelerating the participation of ancestral communities into Web3 by providing access to education, infrastructure, and upfront capital so they can more easily be part of this new socio-economic paradigm.

In particular, we are offering a new business model that enables creatives to pre-sell their products using NFTs. In addition to tangible cultural heritage, cultural performers can pre-sell intangible heritage such as dances, music, ceremonies, and more using NFTs, providing a new digitally enabled revenue stream.

Creatives are then able to pull forward their working capital before their products hit the market, reducing their financial risk and allowing them to focus more on creativity.

This pulls the supply chain forward and reduces operational costs so that these cultural enterprises don’t need disposable funds or savings to build their economies. In the fashion industry, designers and models’ contracts often stipulate that payment may not come for 90 days, or even up to 250 days after a runway, in some cases. Similarly, a new car company may have to wait months for its cars to sit on the lot until they get a buyer.

Immutable Archives of History and Culture

The destruction of cultural and historical artifacts is a sad but common occurrence. Every day, these tangible expressions of our collective past are lost to war, natural disasters, and the destruction of human development. As these sites are erased from existence, we are left with a gaping hole in our understanding of our history.

The fire that destroyed the Notre Dame cathedral serves as a poignant example of the loss of cultural heritage. The iconic structure was an irreplaceable symbol of French history, and its destruction robbed us of more than just a beautiful building. It took away the stories that were woven into its stones, as well as our connection to the generations who created it.

In the ongoing war in Ukraine, over 200 cultural sites have been damaged or even destroyed, from fine art museums to centuries-old religious sites. The destruction of these places casts a pall over the nation’s cultural heritage, and robs future generations of the chance to experience them for themselves. In a case of tragic irony, one site damaged in the conflict was a memorial to the victims of totalitarianism.

In addition, many sites that were damaged during natural disasters, such as earthquakes and floods, are slowly being lost as they are not repaired or rebuilt. The earthquake that struck Nepal in 2015 caused extensive damage to heritage sites throughout the country, and efforts to repair them have been hampered by political instability and a lack of resources. As a result, many of these sites will never be restored to their former glory.

More recently, following the pull-out of American forces from Afghanistan, archaeological sites of immense historical importance have been left exposed to looting and destruction. This includes numerous ancient monasteries, tombs, and other artifacts that have been undisturbed for centuries.

Another area of concern is the illicit trafficking and looting of cultural goods, which not only robs us of our shared heritage, but also perpetuates systems of colonialism and cultural oppression. According to UNESCO, “illicit trafficking of cultural property is one of the world’s biggest illegal enterprises,” and is often linked to organized crime.

When cultural artifacts are stolen or traded without permission, it denies local communities their right to benefit from their own cultural heritage, as well as their right to tell their own stories. The same UNESCO report highlights that, in 2020, 854,742 cultural objects were seized globally by law enforcement agencies. Clearly, this is no small problem, and much more needs to be done to protect cultural heritage from illicit trafficking.

It is understandable why a sense of despair can arise when we see these beloved cultural landmarks succumb to forces beyond our control. But it is important to remember that these sites are much more than physical structures; they embody a shared culture and heritage among the people who cultivate them. Our lack of recognition for this intangible value has often led us to view these sites as mere monuments to be admired from afar, instead of actively engaging with their stories and preserving their history.

Issues With the Legacy Approach to Preservation

The challenge then becomes how do we keep alive the memory and meaning behind these artifacts, both tangible and intangible living heritage?

The traditional process of preserving heritage is dominated by third-party organizations, which are subject to political processes and can be slow and inefficient. When a third-party chooses what is and isn’t to be preserved, the cultural heritage of marginalized and minority groups can be left out.

A New Approach to Preservation

There’s a euro-centrism, religious bias, and politicization in the cultural heritage that gets preserved, that needs to be addressed. A more open and inclusive approach to preserving cultural heritage is needed.

Using Web3 technology, Quantum Temple is creating an immutable record of cultural heritage that can be preserved in perpetuity without fear of erasure or destruction. We are partnering with local institutions and ancestral communities on the ground to document their traditions, rituals, and art forms through visual anthropology video. These videos are then encoded as unique NFTs on the Ethereum and Algorand blockchains, preserving them for posterity and protecting them from censorship or destruction.

Moreover, we are providing a mechanism for payment and transparency by verifying authenticity of items, providing a decentralized record of where funds have gone, and ensuring that payments for products are going to the right place. Additionally, Quantum Temple is building a Web3 National Geographic and community, wherein we control the content. This model offers numerous benefits, such as ensuring the provenance and authenticity of cultural artifacts, enabling new mediums for cultural dissemination, providing regenerative funding for economic and social impact, and creating a new way to connect with ancestral communities and their heritage.

Improved Payment and Transparency

Another problem that Quantum Temple is trying to solve is the lack of transparency and accountability when it comes to payments.

For many people in cultural heritage, the extent to which their work can put dollars in local pockets is limited by their reach. They are often bound to local markets and lack access to a global distribution system.

Consider, for example, football tourism. Many football clubs are located in communities where their fan base is limited to their local area, and the club’s financial potential is limited by the size of its supporter base.

In order to ensure equitable and sustainable preservation of cultural heritage, Quantum Temple is using Web3 technology to provide improved payment and transparency to culture keepers. Every time our NFTs are minted or traded, a fixed percentage of the proceeds will be automatically deposited to the wallet of culture keepers to provide them with an equitable, sustainable incentive.

Another percentage will go to an Impact Fund that deploys social impact initiatives concerning the culture keepers — core pillars such as education, infrastructure, and upfront capital so they can join this new socio-economic paradigm. Collectors also earn the right to gather in a social impact fund to make decisions on how to best deploy the regenerative impact funding to support culture keepers and their heritage around the world.

In the past few years, the “degen” community — short for degenerate — embraced the derogatory term as an empowering moniker. Web3 degens turn to memecoins like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu as a way to achieve financial freedom and inclusivity. While this whimsical approach to finance is often seen as a way to stick it to the man, there are more meaningful ways that Web3 can be used to empower and protect cultural heritage.

Quantum Temple instead adopts a regenerative approach — using Web3 technology to preserve culture and empower creators. Impact Funds can extend the reach of this regenerative approach well beyond cultural heritage and into all areas of business, enabling people to create positive change in the world.

For instance, carbon credits could be minted and exchanged on the blockchain in an immutable, transparent way to incentivize sustainable practices. Today’s carbon credit market is opaque, slow, and expensive. With climate change bearing down on us, Web3 technology could be used to speed up and reduce the cost of implementing climate-friendly solutions.

To give another example, a decentralized ticketing system could be used to ensure that ticket prices are fair, and that the right people receive the right share of proceeds. Web3 technology brings trust and transparency to industries where these have been sorely lacking.

Quantum Temple has no aim to be the only Impact Fund platform. But, by providing a stable and secure foundation for these projects, we can ensure that more Impact Funds are created — and more meaningful change is made.

Members of Quantum Temple will be key stakeholders and governance partners in the projects they create, helping to ensure that the projects are implemented responsibly and ethically. Using Web3 ensures that this mission statement isn’t just a marketing slogan, but part of our core values.

Conclusion

Web3 technology is revolutionizing how we preserve cultural heritage by offering increased working capital for creatives, immutable archives of history and culture, and improved payments and transparency.

Quantum Temple is harnessing these technologies in order create an equitable, transparent marketplace where digital, physical, and experiential NFTs — that encode various forms of cultural heritage — can be freely exchanged to amplify the stories of culture keepers and raise awareness and recognition of their knowledge, traditions, and art forms. Together, we can ensure that our collective beliefs systems are preserved for posterity.