Big Blowup “Bitcoin Rat” Setup in Wall Street Protest Directly in Front of the Federal Reserve Bank

Big Blowup “Bitcoin Rat” Setup in Wall Street Protest Directly in Front of the Federal Reserve Bank

There is a rat on Wall Street and we are not talking about any dirty banker but a giant “Bitcoin rat” which was recently installed in front of the Fed with its claws and fangs pointing at it.

According to reports, the rat is a homage to giant rats which were inflated by union protesters when companies mistreated their employees. Instead of being an old school brown rat, though, this one is colorful and it has code and math equations on it as an ode to Bitcoin, it seems.

The rat, which is in the front of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, is a protest against government-controlled currencies. The blue eyes of the rat spell PoW (proof of work, Bitcoin’s system). The installation was made by Nelson Saiers, artist and ex-hedge fund manager.

Image courtesy of coindesk

He wants to use the non-permanent installation as a way to draw attention to the Fed, the most powerful bank in the world, which controls the US Dollar. Saiers dislikes how the government keeps control of how the USD flows and argues that the inner-mechanics of the money are not as transparent as they should be.

The significance of the rat is not only one of a protest. Warren Buffet has already called Bitcoin a “rat poison squared” thing. Saiers commented to the media that the Fed is a rat and that maybe rat poison is a good thing.

The Intro Ecosystem Features

Saiers has actually done similar work before. Before installing giant rats around, he used to be a mathematician and was nicknamed the Warhol of Wall Street because his paintings depicted the darker side of the finance world including the market crashes and other issues of the industry.

Before the rat, Saiers has also taken a stand against non-violent drug crimes like arresting someone for using drugs. He once made an installation that consisted in hanging football jerseys spelling out the first 100 digits of pi which means that “arresting someone for smoking pot is irrational”, he affirmed.

This is, however, his first Bitcoin-related piece. Saiers says that the rat is not necessarily anti-Wall Street, it depends on the interpretation of the viewer, he explains. He does think the rat gets the Bitcoin message across easily, though, as the sculpture reflects the original spirit of Satoshi and what he tried to do in 2008.

Saiers intends that his art will make people get curious about Bitcoin and the Federal Reserve. He has affirmed that he just want people to enjoy the silliness of the whole thing or two while learning with the art.

Reports from Coindesk affirm that people seemed to be curious about the rat and that many took pictures with it. When Saiers first put the rat up, he accidentally put it on private land, so security guards chased him off to a public sidewalk, however, he affirmed to the media that they “got a kick out of the rat”.

It may be surprising, but Saiers does not seem to be expecting a lot of controversies as he believes that most of the fun in art is to be actually ambiguous and not to rub the “meaning of the rat” in someone’s face. Who is the rat, he says? It is meant to be ambiguous whether Bitcoin or the Fed is the rat, after all.

The artist also linked Satoshi with the famous street artist Banksy, which is also very fond of rats. Just like Satoshi, Banksy uses a pseudonymous and is hated and persecuted by people.

In the end, Saiers prefers ambiguity over everything. He affirms that Bitcoin has become a multi-billion coin despite all the haters. Will it topple the central bank? He does not know and that is why he choose the rat.