The top NFT collection of the last 24 hours isn’t art, but it’s not a thoughtless cash grab either. It’s a thoughtful one. CurrencyPunks is a collection by anon wallet 8219BC that pays homage to CryptoPunks — the OG NFT PPC (profile picture club) by LarvaLabs — and The Currency, an art project by Damien Hirst that asks, what is money? In the same way the Wu-Tang Clan asks, what is art?

Great questions amidst this Great Inflation. The answer to the first appears to be ‘something you’ll blow without thought on the second.’ The answer to the second appears to be ‘anything I say is art’ — no matter how obviously ‘not art’ it is. 

Anyway, econo-political diatribes aside, anon assures us they drew the knock-off Hirst circles with an image recognition algorithm and not just your traditional Photoshop web-snipe. Why having done even less work yourself is something to hang your hat on in the NFT art world is beyond me. Apparently foregoing the human touch is the NBT.

Admittedly, I like the project for attempting to address a thought-provoking question. Like Supreme x Patagonia, it’s as well-executed as a cut and paste collab should be. And although the project is entirely unaffiliated with the one it’s cribbing, anon does offer to cut Hirst in with a free NFT worth 0.05eth should he want it. (All of $200. How thoughtful.) 

We won’t call this art, but it does have A Message, so you can call it Art, because clearly you can call anything Art and it will be so. The lines of the medium continue to blur as the robot becomes our primary means of expression. Will algorithms catch the spirit of humanity? Only time will tell. But since these days said spirit seems to consist of half assed scams and delusions of grandeur, it’s well within the realm.