Did you know Banksy is officially affiliated with a number of NFT collections? As an artist known for his anti-authoritarian social commentary, it is unsurprising that you can use a decentralized, anti-authoritarian means to access and buy his art. In this article, we’ll discuss each of the Banksy NFT collections.
Who is Banksy?
Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist whose identity and real name remain unconfirmed. He has been actively creating controversial works of art using his unique and distinctive stenciling techniques since the 1990s.
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Banksy’s current approximate net worth is $50 million. One of his pieces, “Dismaland,” a parody of Disneyland, has sold for over one million pounds.
There are a total of three Banksy NFTs that are officially affiliated with the artist in varying degrees, although none of the NFTs were ever created and sold by Banksy himself.
Listed below are all of Banksy’s affiliated NFT projects, as well as some general information surrounding each collection.
The ‘Burnt Banksy’ NFT
The first NFT of Banksy’s art is called “Burnt Banksy.” This 1-of-1 NFT was created upon the burning of the original Pest Control-certified Banksy Morons print #325 of 500. A group of crypto-savvy art collectors sold this historical piece through an online auction hosted by Burnt Finance, a decentralized auction house specializing in the burning of real-world assets in exchange for converting them into digital assets in the form of NFTs.
The “Burnt Banksy” NFT was sold for 228.69 ETH on March 28th, 2021, and was valued at approximately $380,000 at the time of purchase.
The official Banksy Art Burning Ceremony video can be found on Youtube, and the NFT can be viewed for purchase on OpenSea, the world’s first and largest digital marketplace for crypto collectibles and non-fungible tokens.
Love is in the Air
“Love is in the Air” is an iconic masterpiece that helped cement Banksy’s place as a decisive political gadfly, and the second work by the artist ever to be sold as an NFT.
A company called the Particle Foundation acquired the original Banksy piece at Sotheby’s auction on May 13th, 2021, for 12.9 million dollars and divided the physical piece into 10,000 digital NFT fragments, which sold for $1,500 each, totaling 15 million dollars.
The fragments are currently only available for purchase at the Kalao marketplace. The 10,000 fragments are selling for much less than the initial $1,500 mint price, largely due to the NFT trading volume dropping more than 97% since the market’s peak in January 2022.
Radar Rats
The third and final NFT collection that is affiliated with Banksy wasn’t actually created by Banksy himself. Radar Rats is a collection of 1,000 Banksy-inspired NFTs created by a group called LCD Lab.
Each Radar Rats NFT has the option to be burned in exchange for an authenticated physical piece of the “Banksy, Walled-Off Hotel, Box Set, 2017.” Contrary to the title of the screen-printed artworks, of which approximately 6,000 are currently in existence, the pieces were created by local artists in Bethlehem, Palestine.
They could have been purchased by anyone who visited the physical giftshop of “The Walled Off Hotel,” a boutique art hotel partially owned and operated by the infamous artist Banksy which is where the artwork gets its name.
The mint price of Radar Rats cost 29 SOL which was the equivalent of 1000 USDT during the collection’s launch on September 12, 2022, on Magic Eden, the leading NFT marketplace on the Solana Network. All is not lost for those who mistakenly purchased a Radar Rats NFT as the Banksy, Walled-Off Hotel, Box Set, 2017 currently sells between £1,950 to $5,500 in various marketplaces online.
Radar Rats – the third NFT project affiliated with Banksy – a physical screen-print of “Banksy Walled-Off Hotel, Box Set 2017” could be claimed by burning the NFT
“Banksy, Walled-Off Hotel, Box Set, 2017” – the art is created by local artists
