A bronze statue of Satoshi Nakamoto, the original and anonymous creator of Bitcoin (BTC), was unveiled yesterday in Budapest, the capital of Hungary.
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The statue shows the top half of an anonymous figure with a characterless face and a hood with the BTC symbol on it. It’s a reference to the fact that Nakamoto’s real identity is still unknown, and may be forever.
Bitcoin was conceived by Nakamoto in 2008 during the economic crisis and the blockchain network launched in 2009. Numerous cryptocurrencies have been launched since then, but BTC still remains by far the largest on the market.
The plan to erect the statue was announced early this summer with the slogan “we are all Satoshi.” András Győrfi, the co-founder of the statue project and editor of crypto news site Kripto Akademia, addressed a large crowd of journalists and Hungarians, saying:
“We see Satoshi as the founder of the entire cryptocurrency industry. He created Bitcoin, he created the blockchain technology, he is the god of our market. Whoever he or she was, Bitcoin creates value, and especially the technology behind Bitcoin, blockchain, creates value.”
Created by Gergely Réka and Tamás Gilly, the statue stands in Graphisoft Park, close to the statue of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. It is the first statue of Satoshi in the world. Gilly tells the Associated Press the following about it:
“It was a big challenge. It is very difficult to make a portrait sculpture of a person that we do not know exactly what he looks like. I hope that through the language of sculpture I have been able to convey the basic idea of Bitcoin, that it belongs to everyone and at the same time to no one.”