With applications closed, participants are well underway to take part in HENI's latest experiment based on the collection by contemporary artist Damien Hirst. HENI, an international art services business, launched the project which aims to re-imagine the way non-fungible tokens are used.
'The Currency' is a collection of 10,000 physical artworks made up of of a combination of hand painted and randomly scattered coloured spots. Each artwork is numbered, contains a unique message, has a microdot of the artist and an embossed stamp.
Each artwork retailed for USD$2,000 and purchasers are now presented with a choice: redeem the physical artwork or keep an NFT with an image of their artwork.
If an owner chooses the physical then the NFT for that artwork is burned and the physical art is delivered, if the NFT is chosen then then the physical work is burned. If no redemption of the physical art is made within a year, the physical art remaining will be burned.
Hirst designed the collection in order to explore the concept of value behind both paintings and money. In a video Hirst shares his interest in viewing the requests to proceed with the collection in digital or physical form and reiterates his view that a key factor underpinning money or commerce is trust.
As NFTs continue to gain attention and the NFT market continues to grow, this is a neat experiment to explore how purchasers will behave.
All NFTs will be minted on the Palm blockchain, an NFT ecosystem built on Ethereum which has been specifically built to be energy efficient and transact with speed. The sale offer was over six times subscribed and the final deadline for purchasers to make their decision is 27 July 2022.