The Currency by Damien Hirst is the artist’s first NFT drop. The Currency is a collection of 10,000 NFTs, also known as Tenders, which correspond to 10,000 unique physical artworks by Damien Hirst, with the NFTs containing high resolution images of the front and back of each of the 10,000 artworks. There was an open application of one week, from 14 – 21 July 2021, with successful applicants able to buy an NFT for $2,000. During this time, 32,472 people applied for a total of 67,023 NFTs. A full report is attached.
The secondary marketplace for buying and selling Tenders has been open since 29 July. The first day of trading on the secondary market saw trading volumes of more than $1.3 million. The average sales price on this day was $7,128. Over the next 10 days (until 9 August), the volume of tenders traded averaged $395,173 per day with an average price of $8,379.
Saturday 14 August saw an increase in volume to $2.8 million in 24 hours. The average price on the day was $14,582, having opened at $11,302 and closed at $19,032.
Sunday 15 August saw the trading volume increase to $9.6 million in 24 hours. The price opened at $21,224 and closed at the end of the day at $36,027. The overall average price on the day from 351 sales was $27,417.
Tuesday 31 August saw trading volume of $6 million in 24 hours. The price opened at $52,107 and closed at the end of the day at $63,114. The overall average on the day from 98 sales was $61,224.
Since the secondary market opened, there have been 2,077 sales totalling $50,026,521.
The total dollar value traded on the secondary market has exceeded the initial drop value of $20 million. Using the current lowest available price, or floor price, of $49,987 the total market value of the project is approximately $500million.
The Currency was ranked the #1 Top NFT (ranked by volume, floor price, and other statistics) on OpenSea on 15 August. This ranking did not take into account the sales on the HENI Marketplace.
The Facts:
- 8,539 wallets initially received Tenders at launch.
- 8,005 wallets currently own a Tender.
- 871 new wallets (customers that did not initially receive an artwork), have bought 1,511/2,077 (73%) of the Tenders sold on secondary markets.
- The top 10 wallets hold just 277 Tenders, the top 100 hold 695 and the top 1,000 hold 1,996. These numbers exclude Damien Hirst’s personal collection of 1,000 tenders.
- 83% (7,122/8,539) of the wallets who received Tenders at launch are still holding them today. These wallets represent 8,758 Tenders in total.
- There are currently 896 works available to buy on either the HENI Marketplace or OpenSea.
- As of 2 September, 14pm BST the floor on OpenSea is $56,472 and on HENI Marketplace $50,888.
- The record price for a Tender was a sale on 31 August for $136,893 and whose title is ‘Can’t you just be as sweet as she says’.
- Since it launched on July 14, the HENI community on Discord has grown to 9,595 members with an average of 2,302 daily visitors.
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About the Artist
Damien Hirst was born in 1965 in Bristol and grew up in Leeds, England. He studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths college from 1986 to 1989. Since the late 1980s, Hirst has created installations, sculptures, paintings and drawings that explore the complex relationships between art, beauty, religion, science, life and death. Through work that includes the iconic shark in formaldehyde, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living(1991) and For the Love of God (2007), a platinum cast of a skull set with 8,601 flawless pavé-set diamonds, he investigates and challenges contemporary belief systems, and dissects the uncertainties at the heart of human experience.
Since 1987, over 90 solo Damien Hirst exhibitions have taken place worldwide and his work has been included in over 300 group shows. In 2012, Tate Modern, London presented a major retrospective survey of Hirst’s work in conjunction with the 2012 Cultural Olympiad. In April 2017, he presented his most complex project to date, ‘Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable’, across two museum spaces in Venice.
HENI is an international art services business working with leading artists and estates across printmaking, marketplaces for physical artworks, NFTs, publishing, digital, film production, art research and analysis. HENI is at the cutting edge of art and tech using the latest and best technologies in order to bring art to life.
In 2020 HENI launched HENI Leviathan, an online marketplace that recently released Damien Hirst’s The Virtues. This series of eight Cherry Blossoms prints was the first instance in which HENI and the artist accepted cryptocurrency as payment. The Virtuesprint drop is considered to be the most commercially successful print drop in history where 7,481 prints were sold over a 6 day period for $3,000 each, raising $22.4 million in total.
HENI focuses on the individual artist and their work, offering innovative NFT projects, art services including printing and reproduction, digital management, events, mounting, logistics and fine art photography. HENI publishes skillfully made art books in collaboration with world-leading writers and artists and creates short films on HENI Talks where leading artists, curators and academics share insights about art history.
HENI supports and works with select institutions, including the Serpentine Galleries, the National Gallery and Tate in London, as well as the Foundation Beyeler in Switzerland.
