an original banksy has been burnt and digitized as NFT

the latest news in the NFT (non-fungible token) world comes from a group of self-described crypto fans that have burned and digitized an original banksy artwork. first created in 2006 and titled morons, the burnt banksy art piece satirizes a historical picture of the record-breaking sale of van gogh’s sunflowers in 1987 with a scribble that reads ‘I can’t believe you morons actually buy this shit.’

images via burnt banksy

burnt banksy, the group that bought the edition of the USD $95.000 banksy artwork from new york’s taglialatella gallery, burned the piece during a livestream. later, the artwork was digitized using blockchain technology on SuperFarm. this marks the first time a physical artwork has been turned into a unique digital asset. ‘we view this burning event as an expression of art itself,’ said mirza uddin, an injective protocol executive. ‘we specifically chose a banksy piece since he has previously shredded one of his own artworks at an auction.’

an auction of the NFT will be happening today on OpenSea with all proceeds going to charity. the winner will receive a certificate of authenticity from pest control, banksy’s official authenticator.

‘we view this burning event as an expression of art itself,’ reads the youtube video description. ‘we are generating a new form of artwork via the creation of this unique NFT that is a direct representation of the physical. the reason the burning itself is so important is because as long as the physical piece exists, the value of that piece will remain with the physical. however, if we entirely re-create the physical piece and input specifications such as the art version number into the smart contract code, no one can ever alter the the digital art in any way. in this way the physical piece will forever be memorialized in this NFT. we hope to inspire new tech and art enthusiasts with our work. we believe NFTs hold tremendous promise and blockchain technology can help to further diversify art expression as we have demonstrated with this banksy burning.’