Damien Hirst, a contemporary artist known around the world, talked about similarities and differences between artwork and fiat currency as he prepared to drop 10,000 NFTs tied to his physical paintings.<\/p>\n
Speaking with Cointelegraph\u2019s Andrew Thurman at his London studio in May, Hirst answered questions in a magic 8-ball fashion, by opening up one of the boxes containing hundreds of sheets of his The Currency<\/em> artwork collection and reading a sentence off the back of the paper. Though the immediate answers were not always on topic \u2014 is Satoshi really a cliche? \u2014 the artist laughed at the absurdity continued to voice his thoughts on money and art. <\/p>\n In particular, Hirst said people believe money has value because it gets \u201ca little leg up with art,\u201d an argument similar to what many critics have discussed about social media pumps and dumps of tokens: some prices only rise because of inflated value driven by high profile figures, i.e. giving a project a little pizazz. The artist said he would \u201clove it\u201d if someday someone were able to use his The Currency<\/em> artwork as actual currency given its value as a nonfungible token, but believes most people will choose to keep the physical painting. With this view, he still sees the technology as eventually revolutionizing the art world.<\/p>\n \u201cI just saw [NFTs] as a really amazing thing,\u201d said Hirst. \u201cI saw it like the invention of paper.\u201d<\/p>\n He added:<\/p>\n \u201cWe already live in a world where you can have artworks, prints, and editions, and then it seems like you can have artworks, prints, editions, and NFTs […] with NFTs I think it\u2019s changing the world, and it will change the world.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Hirst created the physical paintings behind The Currency <\/em>in 2016, long before many in the crypto space or art world were aware of nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. He plans to allow art enthusiasts to purchase each “Tender” \u2014 a high-resolution photo of one of 10,000 unique paintings featuring a pattern of colored dots \u2014 for $2,000, giving them the choice to keep the NFT or trade it in for the physical version.<\/p>\n