A blockchain company purchased an original Bansky artwork for $95,000. Then they set it on fire. Why? The answer lies in NFTs.

A New York art gallery sold the piece “Morons (White),” a highly coveted artwork from the anonymous British artist, in early March 2021. The group that purchased the piece then posted a public video, featuring a masked man holding a lighter to the artwork, watching it burn. Yet, before the group rendered the piece to ashes, they replicated the work in digital format and later sold it for $380,000 as a nonfungible token, or NFT.

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