A Los Angeles-based artist has created a program generating physical representations of Bitcoin blocks as banknotes.
In perhaps the most intriguing attempt to produce a “physical Bitcoin,” Matthias Dörfelt used hashes for 64 random blocks and turned them into physical representations of themselves.
“From a technology standpoint, the blockchain, which was invented through bitcoin, is one of the most groundbreaking things that came along in the past couple years,” Dörfelt told Fast Company.
“Bitcoin itself is worth so much money, and it’s so important nowadays that it was something on my mind.”
Each bill has a pattern from the hash, the number of transactions processed in that block, a signature from “Satoshi” and a feature in the middle resembling a hooded figure. Colour schemes also vary between examples.
The figure has no specific meaning, yet its ghostly appearance is unsettling, together with the style of the overall pattern reminiscent of that in Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream.”
Various businesses have attempted to make something of the physical Bitcoin market over the years, meanwhile, including the successful Denarium, which inputs value into a gold-plated framed coin.
Mostly thought of as a novelty, entrepreneur and investor Alistair Milne nonetheless purchased a physical coin last year.