Financial Traders Burned a 95k Original Print
The Claim
A group of financial traders burned a limited edition screen print by the notorious graffiti artist, Banksy.
News posted on
Emerging story
A group of tech and art enthusiasts backed by the finance group Injective Protocol bought an original Banksy screen print for $95,000. The 2006 print, entitled "Morons" depicts a scene from an auction room where a crowd bids on a gold-framed art piece that says, “I can’t believe you morons buy this shit.” In a live broadcast, the group destroyed the print after turning it into a “non-fungible token,” or NFT. An NFT is a digital asset that uses smart contracts and blockchain technology to make the object unique and unchangable. It's somewhat of a recent craze in both cryptocurrency, and the art world. 
The news was met with fascination, anger, and confusion.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s investigation found this claim to be true. The print was purchased from Taglialatella Gallery in New York, and then burned at an unknown location in Brooklyn on March 3rd over a livestream. In the video, a representative of the group says, “By removing the physical piece from existence and only having the NFT... we can make sure that it is the true piece, and it is the only piece that can exist in the world. By doing this, the value of the physical piece will then be moved onto the NFT, being the only way you can have this piece anymore.”
An NFT is like a digital version of an original piece of art. One way to think of it is that anyone can own a poster or print-out of Van Gogh's Starry Night, but it wouldn't be very valuable. Anyone can see what it looks like, but not anyone can own it. You might even say that an original piece of art has value because the market says it has value.
Owning an NFT is almost like owning a unique piece of code. (Twitter's CEO is currently auctioning off the first Tweet ever published as an NFT.) The blockchain technology built into an NFT assures authenticity, is virtually indestructible, and because NFTs exist in publicly visible networks, their ownership is indisputable.
It seems that the motivation behind the event was both to increase the value of the piece, and experiment with these developing concepts and technology. “The goal here is to inspire," the man in the livestream said. "We want to inspire technology enthusiasts, and artists. We want to explore a new medium for artistic expression."
The NFT sold for around $380,000 at auction on the website OpenSea, which is a marketplace for digital goods. A spokesperson for Injective Protocol said that the profits would be donated to charity.
Both the original print and the video were authenticated by Banksy’s studio, Pest Control. There is no indication that Banksy, who is known for stunts including destroying his own work, was involved in the event.
