To honor cryptocurrency and blockchain, a statue of the unidentified founder of Bitcoin was unveiled by Hungary.
The first statue to honor the creator of bitcoin, the faceless statue, was entirely funded by cryptocurrency donations.
Although the real name of Bitcoin's creator is not known, many speculate on his identity.
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Hungarian cryptocurrency enthusiasts unveiled a statue honoring the anonymous founders of Bitcoin on Thursday.
The bronze bust is life-sized and rests on a stone plinth in Budapest's Graphisoft business park. It has been inscribed with "Satoshi Nakamoto," a pseudonym of the unidentified creator of Bitcoin.
"We consider Satoshi the founder father of the entire cryptocurrency industry,"Andras Gyorfi, a Bitcoin journalist who is also the head of the project, said to the Associated Press. He created Bitcoin, the blockchain technology, and he is the god of our market.
Instead of having any discernible features, the sculpture is a mirror surface that allows visitors see their reflections in Nakamoto's face. This is a reference to Bitcoin enthusiasts' long-held belief "We are all Satoshi" and that Bitcoin belongs to all who use it. The bust's face is covered in a hoodie that bears the Bitcoin logo.
The statue was created by Tams Gilly and Rka Gergely, sculptors. According to the AP, it was funded by $10,000 in cryptocurrency donated by the community. It was announced at a Budapest Blockchain conference held in May.
Gyorfi stated to the news agency that he invited Nakamoto along to the unveiling ceremony in hopes of learning the true identity of the creator. However, it is not known if he was there.
The search for Nakamoto is as old and as mysterious as Bitcoin currency.
In 2008, a paper entitled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to–Peer Electronic Cash System", also known as the "Bitcoin White Paper", was published and circulated in cryptography circles. Satoshi Nakamoto wrote the paper, marking the first ever mention of Bitcoin in the paper.
2009 saw the first open-source Bitcoin. 30,000 lines of code were published. Nakamoto disappeared completely from the internet in 2009, stating that he had "moved onto other things" in an email to a Bitcoin Core Developer.
Many people believed to be Nakamoto were Hal Finney (an early Bitcoin miner), Craig Wright (an Australian entrepreneur), Dorian S. Nakamoto (an engineer) and Elon Musk, Tesla CEO. These connections were never verified and the men either denied or retract claims that they are the Bitcoin founder.
Coinbase, a crypto exchange platform, filed an IPO in February. Nakamoto was symbolically sent a copy. In the filing, the company stated that Nakamoto's identity could seriously compromise Bitcoin's value.
Bitcoin helped usher in the age of decentralized finance. It removed banks and government institutions out of transactions and opened the door for other forms like Ethereum and Dogecoin. El Salvador was the latest country to adopt Bitcoin as its legal tender.
Bitcoin traded at $47.804.98 Thursday, when the statue was raised.
