The New York Stock Exchange has become the sixth host of Valentina Picozzi’s “disappearing” Satoshi Nakamoto statue — a striking shift from just a few years ago when crypto was still taboo on Wall Street.
Long seen as a bastion of traditional finance, the NYSE called the installation “shared ground between emerging systems and established institutions” in an X post on Wednesday.
The statue was installed by Bitcoin (BTC) firm Twenty One Capital, which began trading this week. The design itself is the work of Picozzi, who wrote on X under her Satoshigallery handle that seeing her latest piece in such a high-profile setting is “mind-blowing.”
“This is such an achievement, even in our wildest dream we wouldn’t think about placing the statue of Satoshi Nakamoto in this location! The 6th/21 statues of Satoshi Nakamoto found its home in the NYSE,” she added.
It also happens to coincide with the anniversary of the Bitcoin mailing list, which Nakamoto launched on Dec. 10, 2008.
Bitcoin’s journey from thought experiment to mainstream asset
Satoshi Nakamoto mined the genesis block on Jan. 3, 2009, minting the first 50 Bitcoin in history and planting the seeds for the crypto industry we see today.
Over a year later, on May 22, 2010, programmer Laszlo Hanyecz made the first documented purchase of goods using Bitcoin, paying 10,000 Bitcoin for two Papa John’s pizzas.
In the intervening years, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency faced many challenges, as institutions and banks shunned them, and governments allegedly attempted to suppress them through efforts such as Operation Chokepoint 2.0.
However, it has since turned a corner, as skeptics, such as BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, have changed their minds about the technology, and institutions and Wall Street have scrambled to invest through vehicles like exchange-traded funds and directly by holding Bitcoin in their treasuries.
Public and private companies, countries and ETFs now collectively hold more than 3.7 million Bitcoin, according to Bitbo, worth more than $336 billion.
More Satoshi statues incoming
Picozzi has five other Nakamoto statues around the world, located in Switzerland, El Salvador, Japan, Vietnam, and Miami, Florida.
Related: Disappearing Satoshi statue in Lugano took 21 months to create, says artist
Picozzi, under her Satoshigallery handle, said she is committed to placing 21 around the world, a possible reference to the theoretical 21 million Bitcoin maximum supply.
Speaking to Cointelegraph last year, she said Nakamoto is one of the most intriguing and fascinating figures of this era, and the statues stand as a tribute to the person behind Bitcoin.
“The statue itself wants to give to the viewer this feeling of disappearance, and the sense that the inventor stays between the lines — as of today, Satoshi exists in the lines of the Bitcoin code, allowing humanity to have the first decentralized payment system,” she said.
“It represents a hacker in his stereotyped pose, sitting with the laptop on his legs, and is a tribute to all the developers and programmers around the world that helped build the Bitcoin ecosystem, fighting for transparency and freedom.”
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