The mythical “disappearing” statue of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, has been recovered after it was vandalized and thrown into Lake Lugano, Switzerland. Local council staff discovered the statue in several pieces of broken fragments, indicating vandalism rather than theft for economic gain. The statue was previously mounted in Parco Ciani and featured only limited anchoring at the feet, which remained intact on the pedestal. Art Collective Distributed BTC Reward Artist group Satoshigallery, behind the installation, had offered a 0.1 BTC reward—more than $11,000—for its recovery. Attempted to contact the group, but there was no response to date at the time of publication. “You can steal our symbol, but you will never be able to steal our souls,” Satoshigallery replied in an arrogant social media post, reaffirming their intention to install replicas of the statues in 21 cities across the world. Reactions from the Bitcoin Community Conceived by Italian artist Valentina Picozzi, the statue took nearly two years to be completed before finally being revealed in October 2024. It became a symbolic icon of the global Bitcoin revolution soon. The reaction to the act of vandalism was swift. Pointsville founder Gabor Gurbacs posted on Twitter: “Such a tasteless and stupid thing to do. Hope they find who did it.” Speculation Around the Incident Others, like pseudonymous Bitcoin fan Gritto, hypothesized that drunken Swiss National Day partiers could have been behind it. The robbery was concurrent with Switzerland’s birthday celebration. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino announced the return of the statue on social media with a heart emoji to signify how emotionally important the statue is to the crypto community.
