Damien Hirst sells 10,000 nft on Palm, a new sustainable blockchain
Ethereum Co-founder Joe Lubin creates a 99% sustainable blockchain and Damien Hirst is the first artist to drop a drop.
It is no secret that NFT Non Fungible Token have a strong environmental impact to the detriment of our planet. The record sale of Beeple not only raised $ 69.3 million, it also generated 78,597 kg of CO₂ emissions, the same amount of electricity used by more than 13 homes in a full year.
But today perhaps a solution to the problem has come from the world of Blockchain.
Ethereum and ConsenSys co-founder Joe Lubin have announced the launch of Palm, an alternative network for NFT that is 99% more energy efficient.
Among the blue chip artists, the first to take part in the project is Damien Hirst with The Currency Project, a series of 10,000 oil paintings on paper created five years ago and transformed into NFTs. At the moment the starting price for the sale is not yet known.
The Currency Project explores the fusion of art and wealth and in this regard Hirst told The Art Newspaper: “This project explores the boundaries between art and currency: when art changes and becomes a currency and when currency becomes art”.
This isn’t Hirst’s first foray into the blockchain. Earlier this month, he unveiled a series of eight prints called “The Virtues,” available for purchase via cryptocurrency on Heni Leviathan, an online marketplace for contemporary art.
The works, each depicting cherry blossoms in bloom priced at $ 3,000, were only available for sale for one week. Hirst was one of the few high-profile artists – whose sales are usually handled by blue-chip galleries or auction houses – to land on online sales platforms.
Given the huge energy consumption that the drop would entail, Damien Hirst considered it appropriate to adopt a platform whose environmental impact was more sustainable.
Indeed, if Hirst had launched 10,000 NFTs on an Ethereum-based site, the ecological cost would be catastrophic. According to artist Memo Akten, who has undertaken crucial research on the environmental impact of the crypto industry, one NFT (minted on Super Rare) is equivalent to approximately 211 kg of CO₂.
This means that Hirst’s project would have generated more than 2 million kg of CO₂, the equivalent of 432 cars driven for a year!
Photo Credits: Damien Hirst’s Cherry Blossoms (2020).PHOTOGRAPHED BY PRUDENCE CUMING ASSOCIATES/©DAMIEN HIRST AND SCIENCE LTD
