Damien Hirst’s ‘The Currency’ was a referendum on NFTs vs. IRL Art. Here are the results
The results are in.
A year ago, Damien Hirst announced a cheeky plan to “challenge the concept of value through money and art,” forcing buyers of his NFT project “The Currency” to choose between owning the physical artwork or the digital token attached to it the. Now Hirst has announced the final tally of his Twitter account.
So, are NFTs the future? Not according to the participants in this particular experiment. A slim majority chose to keep the physical Hirst.
The project consisted of 10,000 unique NFTs, each associated with a corresponding artwork the British artist created in 2016, and sold via a lottery system for $2,000. Each of the enamel dot painted works on handmade paper was titled based on the artist’s favorite song lyrics: Will definitely sell You, laugh in our face, This old art: You are always so interesting and Where the money was yesterday. No two colors used in the artworks are alike, and each is stamped by the artist with a micro-dot and a hologram of Hirst’s face.
Hirst announced that his collectors would have to make a choice between the physical artwork and its digital version, setting a one-year deadline – effectively asking them to vote for something that had more lasting value.
Between July 30 and August 31, 2021, just one month into the project, 2,036 sales of “The Currency” generated a staggering $47 million. But over the remaining 11 months, “The Currency” disappeared, with both floor prices and trading volume falling steadily.
In the spring of this year, the “crypto winter” descended and the once-booming market for NFTs took a hit. In July 2022, the mega-platform OpenSea laid off 20 percent of its employees in preparation for a “prolonged downturn”. In all of June 2022, only 170 sales of “The Currency” took place, generating $1.4 million.
Artwork from The Currency, 2021. Photographed by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd. © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS 2022.
Ahead of the final deadline to choose, “The Currency” holders debated the merits of the two mediums. One post on the Discord server related to the project listed the pros of keeping NFTs including “much faster and easier to sell” and “you keep the excitement of the project going.” Cons included “nobody knows if nfts are a fad” and “nft and crypto market is hugely volatile.”
As for keeping the physical prints, the pros included “they look even better in person” and “safe storage of wealth likely to increase in value.” Cons included “you have to insure it” and “you lose your seat on the wild ride if you give up nft and you can get massive fomo.”
In total, Hirst’s project generated around $89 million in sales. Secondary prices are still around $7,500 for the NFTs of “The Currency” – but one of the painted works sold for $26,000 at Phillips London in January.
“The final numbers are: 5,149 physical and 4,851 NFTs (meaning I have to burn 4,851 equivalent physical tenders),” Hirst wroteby attaching pictures of himself laying over file boxes containing masses of works on paper.
Damien Hirst and HENI – the platform that launched the project – will collaborate on an exhibition of the painted works at London’s Newport Street Gallery opening on 9 September 2022. The fiery spectacular will take place at a specific time each day, and a grand closing event under Frize -week in October will feature a massive bonfire of the remaining works that were sacrificed by NFT evangelists.
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