Blockchain, Bitcoin, and Crypto Art
By Linglong Dai '23
In the whitepaper of Bitcoin, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”, Satoshi Nakamoto proposed the Blockchain protocol. It combined several avant-gardes ideas of Cypherpunks and other groups who focused on the development of a digital currency system in the late 20th century. To summarize the function of Bitcoin protocol, it introduces a decentralized system that securely simulates the transaction through storing information in a chain of retraceable blocks. While moving towards greater mechanization, blockchain technology is gradually becoming a popular technology; it is used in banks, voting, and… arts! Crypto art refers to the transaction of artworks through blockchain. In such a system, the process of creating, selling, and buying are regulated without authority, but rather by the public themselves. In Bitcoin, coins exist in the form of sequences of letters or numbers. In a much similar matter exists crypto art; each work is assigned a non-fungible token, which identifies the uniqueness of the work just like a fingerprint. The non-fungible token functions as an identity of the artwork in its circulation in the art market.