British avant-garde painter Damien Hirst, a highly controversial artist, recently made a surprise move requiring buyers to choose between digital NFTs and physical works, and to destroy unselected versions. He has burned nearly a thousand signature polka dot paintings in London galleries in recent days, and thousands more will be destroyed by the end of October.
Wearing silver suspenders and safety gloves, Hirst felt good about throwing pieces of work into a closed firebox for about £2,000.
Last year, he launched a program called "The Currency" to sell 10,000 highly similar polka-dot paintings, and these 10,000 paintings were also made into NFT digital versions, and it is puzzling that Hirst asked buyers to choose between NFT digital versions and physical paintings.
According to the Newport Street Gallery in London, 5,149 buyers have opted for the physical version and 4,851 for the NFT version. Nearly a thousand paintings have been burned and thousands more will follow, with nearly £10 million expected to be burned.