HENI Is the First NFT Project to Use Chainlink Oracles for Pricing Damien Hirst’s Art NFTs Across Leading Blockchains

HENI is delighted to be the first NFT project to use Chainlink oracles for pricing Damien Hirst’s NFTs across The Currency collection. HENI is using Chainlink’s industry-leading oracles on Ethereum mainnet to provide up-to-date pricing values for the collection to decentralized finance (DeFi).

The Currency is a functioning exploration of meaning and value in art, and especially in its use as a means of exchange. I believe 100% in a future where NFTs and DeFi become increasingly interlinked and I’m excited and honoured to be at the forefront of these incredible developments with HENI and the release of The Currency oracle.

We are using Chainlink oracles to bring pricing data onto blockchains so that smart contracts can fetch the current value of The Currency NFTs at any given time. Smart contract developers can then use this pricing data in multiple ways, such as to build prediction markets around the floor price, launch lending markets with The Currency NFTs as collateral, or facilitate payments based on real-time exchange rates.

The Currency NFT Collection

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The Currency is a collection of 10,000 NFTs that correspond to 10,000 unique physical artworks created by Damien Hirst. The collection was launched in July 2021. Each hand-painted artwork features hundreds of similar, yet unique, colorful spots with creative titles generated by applying machine learning to some of the artist’s favorite song lyrics. The collection was minted on Palm, an EVM-compatible sidechain, but many of the NFTs have been transferred across the bridge to Ethereum.

Collectors are presented with a choice to keep the NFT or exchange it for the physical artwork—if a collector chooses the NFT, the artwork will be destroyed and vice versa. So far, at the time of writing, 492 NFTs have been burned in exchange for a physical painting. The deadline to decide closes on July 27, 2022.

Damien Hirst’s second NFT collection, Great Expectations, was airdropped to holders of The Currency in November 2021. Great Expectations is based on the artwork that Damien Hirst created for Drake’s album cover, Certified Lover Boy. It was made using dots from The Currency. There was also a free merch giveaway to holders of The Currency in December 2021.

The Currency Price Index

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In building The Currency, we realized that if the NFTs were to be utilized as a medium of exchange, there needs to be access to high-quality price data across the NFT collection. To do this, the HENI Data Science team is using Chainlink oracles to bring up-to-date NFT pricing to blockchains. To learn more about the methodology used to create The Currency Price Index, you can find a detailed description in the Technical Specifications document here.

Providing clear and detailed market data has always been an integral part of The Currency. We have released detailed monthly trading reports since the project’s inception.

The Oracle Solution

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Blockchains are inherently disconnected from external data and systems, an issue commonly referred to as ‘the oracle problem’. As such, we required a middleware solution known as an ‘oracle’ to bridge The Currency Price Index data on-chain, so it can then be used by blockchain applications to facilitate functions like payments and lending.

After reviewing various oracle solutions, we decided to use Chainlink because it is the most time-tested and widely adopted decentralized oracle network in the industry.

Some of the other unique benefits of providing our data through Chainlink oracle infrastructure include:

• Credential Management — Chainlink nodes can securely manage API keys and account logins, enabling Chainlink nodes to bring any type of external data on-chain.
• Blockchain Agnostic — Chainlink is blockchain agnostic, meaning that data can be made available on any current or future blockchain and Layer 2 network.
• Widely Adopted — Chainlink is the most widely used oracle network in the blockchain industry, offering us access to a vast addressable market of potential data consumers.
• Provably Secure — Chainlink is a thoroughly audited open-source software designed according to leading academic research, and is already proven to secure billions of dollars in value live in production.

Developers can begin building and testing with the HENI Chainlink node by visiting the following documentation.

To join the community and learn more about The Currency, you can join our Discord Server here.

About HENI

HENI is a technology company that believes in the importance of art, engaging with all aspects of its creation and distribution to make art accessible to everyone.

HENI exists to serve artists, collectors, institutions, and the public, relying on a connection with and commitment to cutting-edge technology across all its platforms to do so. Through its services, HENI helps artists create, present, and deliver art in all its diverse forms as well as assist collectors, institutions and the public in their exploration of art through news, film, NFTs, printmaking, data and market analysis, and publishing. HENI also aims to build a community of people interested in understanding and sharing ideas about art, as well as investing in and supporting companies with similar objectives.

About Chainlink

Chainlink is the industry standard for building, accessing, and selling oracle services needed to power hybrid smart contracts on any blockchain. Chainlink oracle networks provide smart contracts with a way to reliably connect to any external API and leverage secure off-chain computations for enabling feature-rich applications. Chainlink currently secures tens of billions of dollars across DeFi, insurance, gaming, and other major industries, and offers global enterprises and leading data providers a universal gateway to all blockchains.

Learn more about Chainlink visit chain.link or read the developer documentation at docs.chain.link. To discuss an integration, reach out to an expert.