Photo: The Disappearing Satoshi Nakamoto Statue

An Italian bitcoin enthusiast pays homage to the person or people who started the cryptocurrency revolution.

It doesn't matter who Satoshi Nakamoto is or was, are or were.

That's the point of the newly revealed art piece in Ciani Park, Lugano, Switzerland. The metal statue, almost completely transparent from the front, was 21 months in the making by Italian artist and bitcoiner Valentina Picozzi.

Unveiled during the Plan Forum in October 2024, the installation, Picozzi said, is supposed "to give to the viewer this feeling of disappearance, and the sense that the inventor stays between the lines." The cloaked silhouette of the super-coder it depicts pays homage to the crypto-anarchist(s) who made bitcoin—and then immortalized it by disappearing.

 

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Comments

[Randy Sax]

Len Sassaman is my guess.

[mad.casual]

Given the way everyone worships the oxymoronic intentions of transparency and freedom, I'm inclined to go more with Sam Hill, Plutus, Philarguria, or Mammon.

The whole story really couldn't be more retardedly mythological/legendary if The Devil himself had hopped up on a stump in Georgia, challenged Nakamoto to a round of CTF, and laid a golden block chain at his feet after being defeated.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Have to say that is very cool. I don't own Bitcoin but I'm invested in several BTC adjacent funds and ETFs. Bitcoin was designed to be an alternative currency but has become an asset class which may or not be what Satoshi intended. I hope it will become a viable currency in the next few years. Otherwise it's just another asset to hedge the USD ultimately controlled by regime regulators.

[Rick James]

I hope it will become a viable currency in the next few years.

Narp.

Otherwise it's just another asset to hedge the USD ultimately controlled by regime regulators.

Yarp.

[Rick James]

I should say, all cynicism aside, it does have some utility in transporting money across hostile borders-- but I have never... EVER been able to get a clear answer from even the most ardent Bitcoin/Alt currency fanbois on how much one could realistically 'cash in' in their currency of choice. I've been told a few thousand here and there, maybe more for the larger, more reliable currency exchanges-- which are all heavily watched by regulators which kind of causes the loss of anonymity.

Then there was the whole 'everyone going pale' when it was discovered that Bitcoin was, in a sense, an anti-anonymity currency when it was discovered you could reverse engineer the ledger and figure out not only who had what bitcoin, but what they spent it on.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Yeah that's why I'm not a true believer although I'll happily take whatever profit I can get. The actual utility is pretty small and if all we're doing is trading it for yuan or dollars or yen or euros or rubles it's not anonymous. It's "money" anywhere you go but so is gold. And you can't fill a tooth with digital currency.

[mad.casual]

EVER been able to get a clear answer from even the most ardent Bitcoin/Alt currency fanbois on how much one could realistically 'cash in' in their currency of choice. I've been told a few thousand here and there, maybe more for the larger, more reliable currency exchanges-- which are all heavily watched by regulators which kind of causes the loss of anonymity.

It's a bit of an "Old Saul" situation; if you're sitting around the blockchain and you can't figure out who's on the wrong side of the bid-ask spread, you aren't helping any refugees.

It's good to be the kind of refugee that can walk into an exchange and command a favorable rate for whatever ordinary business transaction you may desire.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

A "disappearing" statue would be more appropriate for US dollars and other fiat currency.

[mad.casual]

The only way the statue could get better is if, in a couple of years, the WEF pays Maduro to buy it off the self-named "Plan Forum" and he puts it on display in one of his residences.

[mad.casual]

How could he be anonymous in an era where everybody is traced and tracked?

There is, you know, an obvious answer (take it away BraveAI):

The ANOM phones were created by a person known as “Afgoo,” a tech expert associated with the criminal underground. Afgoo offered to develop the ANOM platform and use his contacts to distribute it to criminal organizations. The FBI and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) then collaborated with Afgoo to build a backdoor into the communication platform, allowing them to monitor all communications. This collaboration resulted in the FBI and AFP being able to intercept and decrypt messages as they were transmitted, leading to the successful sting operation known as Operation Trojan Shield.

[Rick James]

leading to the successful sting operation known as Operation Trojan Shield.

Yeah, I watched a mini-doc on that whole thing. Buying an ANOM phone was the equivalent of 'ribbed for her pleasure' right up the ass.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

So Bitcoin is just another run of the mill CIA Psy Op? It all makes sense now!

[mad.casual]

Grey's Law

Again, depending on which retelling of ANOM you consume or believe, the AFP/FBI was essentially doing their usual thing of strong arming suspects and suddenly got really creative *or* an arms dealer's tech guy saw an opportunity to profit after the AFP shut down the previous secure phone network and then, once the device/network/platform/ecosystem was on the verge of maturity, just decided to turn the whole affair over to the FBI.

But I grew up in an era when the conspiracy theory about the CIA funneling money to and supporting the Contras and cartels in CA/LA were still, by modern standards, "Mostly false. Needs more context."

[Rick James]

No, I wasn't making any specific commentary on bitcoin re the ANOM system-- beyond any implicit obviousness about those really cool exchange(s) that Reason continuously simp for that will almost very likely have NSA/CIA surveillance unwittingly (and most likely wittingly) attached- forwarding every transaction made directly to a government data-center in Utah.

EDIT: Dang, this bitcoin would sure be useful if it weren't such a pain in the ass to transact in.

Libertarian Cypherpunk with goatee: Dude, let's build an exchange!

Government: Hey exchange, bend over and let me pull your hair-- unless you'd like to be regulated or litigated out of existence.

Reason: Hot!

EDIT2: Think of it this way: Bitcoin is the encryption algorithm. The exchange is the turnkey ANOM operating system that uses the encryption algorithm and lets the cool kids easily talk to each other after you enter all your passwords into it.

[Use the Schwartz]

Some skimmed BTC profits paid for Christmas this year, thanks Satoshi Nakamoto wherever you are...

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Satoshi made baby Jesus smile.

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

Pa rum pa pum pum.