#crypto #NFT #burn #artist #Hirst
“Nearly 50% of the buyers of Hirst’s ‘The Currency’ collection wanted to keep the NFT version”–Paul Ebeling
The UK’s richest living artist, Damien Hirst to burn thousands of his paintings as part of a year-long nonfungible token (NFT) project called The Currency.
Starting in September, visitors to Hirst’s private London museum will be able to view some of his 10,000 oil paintings depicting unique dots he created in Y 2016 and linked to NFTs in Y 2021.
Buyers of the $2,000 floor-priced NFTs were given the option to keep the token or trade it for the physical painting. The original artwork will be burned for those who choose to keep the NFT version.
The deadline for the decision was Wednesday, with nearly 50% of the collectors, 4,851 wanting their paintings burned for digital edition NFTs, while 5,149 collectors opted to trade their NFTs for physical versions.
The art will be torched daily during the run of the event beginning on 9 September, culminating in its closure during the London Frieze Week event in mid-October, when the remaining paintings will go up in smoke.
The initial sale and subsequent resales have been handled by NFT marketplace Heni. According to Heni, sales surged in August and September 2021 when the project launched.
The Currency became the top collection in OpenSea NFT rankings on 15 August 2021.
The maximum price for a piece was $176,779, with the average buyer spending $21,078. The most recent sale was on 28 July for $8,708 USD Coin (USDC), bringing the total sold for the collection to $89.3-M.
Hirst commented that “I still don’t know what I’m doing, and I have no idea what the future holds, whether the NFTs or physicals are going to be more valuable or less,” adding that even after one year, he felt “the journey was just beginning.”
Damien Hirst was declared the UK’s richest artist in Y 2020, with a net worth of more than $380-M.
Have a prosperous weekend, Keep the Faith!
