In October 2018, Banksy’s artwork, The Girl with the balloon ,destroyed itself immediately after being sold at Sotheby’s for more than a million pounds.

We challenge you to find someone who has never seen the video of that moment.

Three years have passed and here is the twist: another of his artworks has been destroyed.

The painting in question “Morons”, an emblem of irony against the art and auction market recently sold by Christie’s for $ 33,000, was burned.

Morons, Courtesy of Hexagon Gallery

It is natural to ask by whom and why.

Who

The authors of the “stake” are – by their definition – a group of art and tech enthusiasts that published on their Twitter channel , called Burnt Banksy, the video of the “crime” in which a boy, wearing a t-shirt with The Girl with the balloon printed,  with a lighter sets the artwork on fire.

Morons going on fire, video frame- Courtesy of Art Newspaper

Why

It is that boy who explains the reasons in a short speech.

The work was sacrificed for a good reason which is the drive to digital art and in particular to NFT (non fungible tokens).

” If you were to have the NFT and the physical piece, the value would be primarily in the physical piece. By removing the physical piece from existence and only having the NFT, we can ensure that the NFT, due to the smart contract ability of the blockchain, will ensure that no one can alter the piece and it is the true piece that exists in the world. By doing this, the value of the physical piece will then be moved onto the NFT.”  Being clearer than this, it’s quite impossible.

Burnt Bansky have turned to convert Morons to Superfarm, a cross-chain DeFi protocol that allows users to deploy NFTs without the need for code. Morons is now up for auction on OpenSea until March 9th.

Encouraging greater use of technology is the group’s advertised goal, but let’s face it, it’s the financial gain that’s tempting.

And now, whether these flames are the symbol of the beginning of a revolution or as some say just “an inconoclastic act”, seeing a work being burnt always causes – at least to us – a certain pain.