CRYPTOCURRENCY AS ART

2014–2018, S. SATOSHI

SCARAB is the world’s first cryptocurrency as art.

THE ART:

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​Artist(Pseudonym): S.Satoshi

Title,Year: SCARAB, 2015

Medium: Cryptocurrency

​Size: 100,000 pieces

H.O.A: Hash of Authentication

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THE CRYPTO DIDACTIC STATEMENT:

​”SCARAB is not attached to a physical work of art or digital object because the cryptocurrency itself is the art, chosen by the artist to be, act, and represent the linguistic term of what an artwork is.

Since Duchamp we have moved beyond the work, beyond the artist, and have dissected the interpretation directly from the audience. We say things like intrinsic value comes from beauty, comes from importance, but where the value really lies is in the belief of whatever story we’re telling ourselves at the moment. Sometimes the story is exciting and the value of that story’s elements goes up and sometimes the story is dull and the value of those elements goes down. This is the way our world works by our design.

By creating a cryptocurrency and proclaiming it as art we can clearly see the desperation of our self-made tales and observe the true reason for assigning an abstract value system on art, money, and things.

Warhol reflected his time in culture with mass produced prints which materially are nothing more than fancy printed papers that narrated societies numbing love of commerce. So too SCARAB reflects the current age by announcing a progressive movement from materialistic things into an ever expanding illusory story of value.

Just as work from Murakami, Picasso, or Pollock has gone from art to currency through the pretense of fame and story, with little being attributed to the actual materials of construction; SCARAB is at once both art and currency without the need for an illusory element, such as beauty, or fantastical tale to get it from art to value. It has no need for an artist or object, physical or not. It traps the ephemeral, aura quality in a work and shows it for what it really is.”

Additional Note:

SCARAB has been a work in progress since 2014, it is simultaneously an artist collective and a work of art itself. With a market cap of over $15,000,000 (updated 1–20–2018) it’s one of the most monetarily valued works of contemporary art.

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WHAT IS SCARAB?

The world’s first cryptocurrency artist collective that’s working to create the enigma known as SCARAB and simultaneously the first cryptocurrency as art in and of itself. The art doesn’t need the community to exist and the community doesn’t need the art to exist but together a beautiful symbiosis of identity and art blossom.

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More about the identity:​

SCARAB is a mass multi-user persona linked to a decentralized artist collective through a cryptocurrency token. What this means is that SCARAB is an artist like Picasso, Warhol, or Davinci but whose works are created by the efforts of a group of artists together and whose gallery showings are curated by the community members through voting. In order for the process to work members must hold a Scarab Token in a linked account so that they can vote. While SCARAB may be an imagined and digital entity its works are quite real and authentic.

More information or to submit art: http://thescarabexperiment.org