Damien Hirst Will Burn 4,851 Paintings For NFT.

Nearly half of the people who purchased pieces from Hirst’s collection The Currency were interested in retaining the NFT version.

Damien Hirst, who is said to be the wealthiest living artist in the United Kingdom, is going to destroy hundreds of his paintings as part of a nonfungible token (NFT) project that will last for an entire year and is named The Currency.

Beginning in the month of September, guests to Hirst’s private museum in London will have the opportunity to view some of the 10,000 oil paintings the artist has created representing the one-of-a-kind dots he invented in 2016 and linked to NFTs in 2021.

Those who purchased the NFTs with a floor price of $2,000 had the option of either keeping the token or exchanging it for the actual painting. For individuals who select to keep the NFT version, the original artwork will be destroyed by burning.

Wednesday was the last day to make a decision, and nearly half of the collectors, 4,851, wanted their paintings to be burned for digital edition NFTs.

The other 5,149 collectors elected to trade their NFTs for physical reproductions of the paintings instead. The artworks that are still in existence will be set ablaze during the closing ceremony of the exhibition, which will take place during London Frieze Week in the middle of October and will be the culmination of the event’s run, which will begin on September 9 and continue until its conclusion. The artist, who is 57 years old, offered his thoughts on the verdict on Wednesday, saying:

“I believe in art, and I believe in art in all of its manifestations; nevertheless, in the end I thought, f**k it! This zone is the one I know the least about, yet it is so insanely thrilling, and I am so in love with the NFT community that it blows my mind.

Previously, Hirst expressed his thoughts on the project to The Art Newspaper, stating that it “touches on the idea of art as a currency and a store of wealth.”

The NFT marketplace Heni was in charge of both the first transaction and any later secondhand resales that took place. According to Heni, there was a significant increase in revenue during the months of August and September 2021 when the idea was first introduced. On August 15, The Currency ascended to the position of most valuable collection in the OpenSea NFT rankings. Despite this, volumes have been on a downward trend over the past few months along with the wider crypto market fall.

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The highest price that could be paid for a piece was $176,779, while the average amount that a buyer spent was $21,078. The collection has now generated a total of $89.3 million in sales thanks to the most recent transaction, which took place on July 28 and involved the exchange of 8,708 US Dollar Coins (USDC).

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