In summary
- Artist Damien Hirst is accepting Bitcoin and Ethereum for a new batch of prints.
- The pieces are 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 who lives– said he is now taking Bitcoin and Ethereum as payment for a new print run.
“For the first time, I am accepting cryptocurrency as a payment,” he wrote on Instagram. “It is difficult for any of us to trust anything in this life, but somehow we managed and even found love and I love art and I love the cryptographic world and I am happy and proud to put my faith in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) and accept them for this fall. “
And although you can pay for them in encryption, these pieces are largely not “crypto art” – the eight prints represent different forms of cherry blossoms, inspired by the eight virtues of bushidō, the code of the samurai. They cost $ 3,000 per pop, and will only be on sale until March 3rd.
The physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone who lives put Hirst on the map in the 1990s, and although he has produced less important work over the years, his art continues to be polarized as usual; a 2017 exhibition in Venice was received with both raves and pots.
The great story of the proverbial “intersection of art and technology” in recent months wasNFTs (non-fungible tokens): assets protected by encryption that can place any type of digital art on Ethereum blockchain. According to a report by blockchain analyst firm NonFungible, the market grew by 2,800% last year.
Earlier today, musician and visual artist (and girlfriend of billionaire Elon Musk) Grimes sold a collection of NFTs for more than $ 6 million.
And while NFTs are usually images and animations online, physical works of art can also come with NFT components. In October, Christie’s sold a Bitcoin themed piece with a follow-up NFT of $ 131,000.
For now, however, Hirst’s impressions remain out of jail.