Fractional

Fractional was founded in 2021 by Andy Chorlian and launched as a protocol allowing NFT holders to lock high-value NFTs into smart contract vaults and issue ERC-20 tokens representing fractional ownership — enabling price discovery and liquidity for assets that would otherwise be illiquid. The platform quickly became the go-to venue for fractionalizing blue-chip NFTs: CryptoPunks, Bored Ape Yacht Club, Art Blocks, and other generative art pieces were vaulted during the 2021–2022 NFT bull market. In July 2022, the team raised $7.9 million in a seed round led by Paradigm, with participation from Uniswap Labs Ventures, Delphi Digital, and others. The protocol rebranded to Tessera in late 2022 as part of a broader product expansion effort.

The platform operates on Ethereum. To fractionalize an NFT, a curator locks the asset in a Tessera vault and issues a fixed supply of ERC-20 tokens (fractions) that can then be bought, sold, or held by any wallet. Governance rights attach to token holders — including the ability to vote on buyout offers. The buyout mechanism is a key structural feature: any party holding fractions can trigger a buyout auction by posting a bid in ETH, and if token holders do not purchase enough fractions to veto the offer within a set window, the buyout proceeds and all fraction holders are redeemed at the buyout price. Total value locked (TVL) on the protocol peaked at roughly $170 million in early 2022 and had declined sharply by 2023 alongside the broader NFT market downturn. As of mid-2025, the platform's activity and team communication had significantly diminished. Verify current TVL and operational status at tessera.co.