In a sudden announcement today, Andy Chorlian, co-founder and CEO of the Fractional Token Company, revealed that Web3 platforms Tessera and Escher would begin slowly tapering operations in the near future.
Launched in 2021 under the name Fractional Art, Tessera has made a name for itself as a Web3 service that specializes in the fractional ownership of NFTs, allowing fans to own a piece of blue-chip NFTs like Bored Apes or CryptoPunks. The platform also supports Nounlets, an experimental NFT initiative that enables collective ownership of a single noun. Launched in March 2023, Escher is designed as a marketplace where users can not only see all of an artist’s works in one place, but also discover editions of NFTs for visual arts.
The end of an era
In a heartfelt message, Chorlian expressed his gratitude to all who supported the company and pledged to ensure that the winding down process was conducted responsibly. He also stressed that the team took this step while in the financial position to do so smoothly, with the aim of focusing on supporting their employees through the transition.
“We spent a long time carefully analyzing possible market scenarios, our corporate structure and our financial situation and decided this was the best choice for our team and our investors,” said Chorlian, a well-known Web3 figure and co-host of the We do a little podcast, wrote in the Twitter announcement. “When we really dug into the economic model for Escher, we saw that the goals we had to meet to become profitable – compared to the time and resource costs to scale there – just weren’t right or didn’t make good business sense. “
The announcement came as a shock to many in the NFT community, who expressed their gratitude and compassion under Chorlian’s tweet. Fractional Art was seen as a major innovation by the wider Web3 community when it first launched.
Fractional Art (Tessera) quickly gained a reputation for innovation after its launch, allowing multiple individuals to collectively own one NFT. As of August 2022, more than 70,000 users collectively owned more than 6,500 NFTs on the platform, including a zombie CryptoPunk worth $3.46 million at the time of purchase. Tessera also raised money for social causes, including an $8 million fundraiser for Ukraine, and served as the birthplace for decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) such as Doge NFT and FreeRossDAO.
Mourning Escher
The news is especially bitter for fans of Chorlian’s work who were looking forward to Escher’s future. In April, Chorlian intervened on Twitter shares his vision for the platform, building a Web3 destination that would serve as an aggregator of the entirety of an artist’s work. Starting with Editions, an NFT drop mechanism that gained huge popularity by the end of 2022, the platform acted as a one-stop shop for all of a participating artist’s work. The platform featured work from the likes of Dave Krugman, Summer Wagner, Postwook, Alpha Centauri Kid, Bryan Brinkman, and more.
We hope to make showrooms the ultimate place to discover, view and collect an artist’s entire work portfolio
Over time, Escher will allow artists to express themselves easily and creatively through full aggregation, showroom customization, and some fun tools.
—andy (@andy8052) April 21, 2023
In Chorlian’s winding down announcement, he stressed that he is not going anywhere, assuring his followers that he will stay in space and keep building during what is increasingly seen as the coldest crypto winter in years.
“I’ve thought a lot about all my mistakes over the years as the first founder,” he said, “and will share those thoughts at another time.”