The iconic “disappearing” statue of pseudonymous Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, reported stolen on Saturday, has been recovered, according to Satoshigallery, the art collective responsible for installing the statue. Municipal workers from the city of Lugano, Switzerland, recovered the statue, which was thrown into Lake Lugano after it was removed from its base in Parco Ciani, a lakefront park in the Swiss city, by unknown persons.
The municipal workers discovered the statue in several pieces, indicating vandalism, rather than theft for monetary gain. The statue was only welded to the base at two points at the statue’s feet, which remained fixed to the base. Satoshigallery offered a 0.1 BTC reward, valued at over $11,000, for the recovery of the statue, and Cointelegraph reached out to the art collective for comment but was unable to obtain a response by the time of publication. The iconic work of art by the Italian artist and Bitcoin advocate Valentina Picozzi was unveiled in October 2024 and has become a flagship symbol of the Bitcoin community. The statue took 21 months to fully plan and construct, according to the artist.
The Bitcoin community voiced reactions of disgust and defiance at the theft and vandalism of the statue, which has since become a symbol of the Bitcoin movement and the digital currency’s mysterious creator. “Such a tasteless and stupid thing to do. Hope they find who did it,” Gabor Gurbacs, founder and CEO of blockchain loyalty rewards and tokenization platform Pointsville, wrote in a X post.
Others like pseudonymous Bitcoin advocate Gritto theorized that “drunk” partygoers celebrating Swiss National Day, the holiday that commemorates the founding charter of the European country, were responsible for the vandalism. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino reacted to the recovery of the iconic statue with a simple heart emoji on social media. “You can steal our symbol, but you will never be able to steal our souls,” Satoshigallery said, while reiterating the art collective’s commitment to placing similar statues in 21 locations around the globe.
