Briefly
- Artist Damien Hirst accepts Bitcoin and Ethereum for a new series of prints.
- The pieces were inspired by bushidō, the samurai code.
Damien Hirst – the British artist known for his preserved shark piece, The physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living—Did he take now Bitcoin and Ethereum as payment for a new series of prints.
“For the first time, I accept Cryptocurrency for payment,” he wrote on Instagram. ‘It’s hard for one of us to trust something in this life, but somehow we get it right and we even find love, and I like art, and I like the crypto world, and I is proud and proud of it Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) and accept them for this decline. ”
And although you can pay for it in crypto, these pieces are by no means ‘crypto art’ – the eight prints represent different cherry blossoms, inspired by the eight virtues of bushidō, the samurai code. They cost $ 3000 per doll, and they are only on sale until March 3rd.
The physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living put Hirst on the map in the 90s, and although he has done less important work over the years, his art remains, as always, polarizing; a 2017 exhibition in Venice met with both raves and breakdown.
The big story at the proverbial “intersection of art and technology” over the past few months wasNFT’s (non-fungible characters): cryptographically secured assets that can place any kind of digital art on the Ethereum blockchain. According to a report by blockchain analytics firm NonFungible, the market grew by 2,800% last year.
Earlier today, musician and visual artist (and friend of billionaire Elon Musk) Grimes sold a collection of NFTs for more than $ 6 million.
And while NFTs are usually online images and animations, physical artworks can also contain NFT components. In October, Christie’s selling a Bitcoin-themed piece with an accompanying NFT for $ 131,000.
For now, however, Hirst’s prints do not remain in the chain.