On Monday, officials in Lugano, Switzerland, retrieved the statue of the inventor of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, which was recovered from Lake Lugano. On the weekend, the statue was pulled out of the ground in Parco Ciani and thrown into the lake. The building, which consisted of 304 stainless steel and corten blocks, was in bits and pieces, floating in the water and also on the beach.
Local visitors first posted the news of the theft on social media when they could not see the monument. Italian artist Valentina Picozzi created the statue, an optical illusion artwork that turns transparent into a code when the viewer looks at it in specific ways. Through her project, Satoshigallery, she released the art to raise awareness of the culture surrounding Bitcoin and its philosophy of decentralization.
Satoshi gallery, which was based in the US, offered a reward of 0.1 BTC (worth more than 11,000 USD at that time) to anyone who brought back the statue. Following the act of vandalism, the group of artists also reiterated its plans to install comparable Bitcoin monuments in 21 locations worldwide. To support the cause, a petition was created on Change.org asking the city officials to restore the monument, with organizers willing to fund the restoration.
It was initially unveiled at the Plan B Forum in October 2024, where Lugano and Tether were co-hosts. The project is part of a larger initiative to have physical representations of Bitcoin and its founder around the world. Other places where this kind of tribute is held are Tokyo, Budapest, and Slovenia.
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The Lugano installation is also among a number of physical embodiments of the Bitcoin online persona. These monuments give people a tangible representation of the abstract idea of Bitcoin. Among the notable efforts to create one anywhere in the world are a mirrored bust in Budapest and an inflatable so-called Bitcoin rat in New York.
Observers have argued that the recent one might have been the celebration of the Swiss National Day. The city is still investigating without any suspects. The mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto is the holder of more than 1 million BTC, which remains in inactive wallets.