Why does the museum need NFT? NFT as a new mechanism for certain areas of activity of traditional cultural institutions

Abstract

Abstract: The work explores the practice of using NFT by traditional cultural institutions (museum, gallery) to solve the problems of expanding audiences, raising funds, and creating a digital museum. The main focus is on the Hermitage’s experience. The purpose of the work is to identify those areas in which NFT for traditional cultural institutions provides a new mechanism for promotion, audience engagement, and fundraising that is not reproducible by traditional methods (or more effective than when implemented by traditional methods). The paper examines and identifies three possible approaches to the NFT as a document certifying ownership of an object, as a separate work of art (the token has the characteristics of a medium), as a low-circulation reproduction, and traces the practices of cultural institutions stemming from this understanding. The legal status of the NFT is being considered. The work reveals what tasks cultural institutions can solve by including works of crypto art in their collections, producing and selling NFTs based on their collections, and how good these solutions are. The work can be useful when making a museum’s decision to release its own NFT collection.

Keywords: NFT, cryptoart, digital art, digital museum, traditional museum, museum promotion, attracting audiences to the museum, raising funds to the museum

For citation: Grigorenko, M. (2026). Why does the museum need NFT? NFT as a new mechanism for certain areas of activity of traditional cultural institutions. Russia’s Directions. Vol. 4. No. 1. P. 89–125.

Additional Info

Submitted: July 16, 2025

Reviewed: January 23, 2026

Copyright: © Auhtors, 2026

Distribution: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)