Black Swan

Repurposed fiat on wood

3.55 cm x 4.44 cm (1.44 in x 1.75 in)

Watch the making of video:

Black Swan is the least expensive artwork ever sold.  In December of 2018, the piece was auctioned to the lowest bidder for one millisatoshi ($0.000000037 at the time).  I created it for two reasons: 

1. poke fun at MSM's focus on Bitcoin's price and not the groundbreaking technology being built

2. help spread awareness about the lightning network

The promise of micropayments was instrumental in my becoming an artist in the space.  In 2012, I first read about the idea of combatting email spam and DDOS attacks by charging negligible amounts of money to send messages or log into sites. These were the first creative use cases I had heard for cryptocurrency. It inspired me to think how micropayments could benefit artists.  And in 2013 I began posting street art around the SF Bay Area/Pacific NW with a public facing wallet so passersby could send small amts of bitcoin if they liked the work.

I’m excited about a future where micropayments are omnipresent.  Artists paid by the view, writers by the poem, musicians by the listen.  Every day interactions complemented by positive monetary reinforcement such as tipping someone who let you merge into traffic.  Hopefully this micro auction inspires others to think big about this tiny tech.

This article discusses the work in more detail.