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- Artist Alberto Echegaray showcases “Moneyballs,” spheres filled with shredded currencies, highlighting the shift to digital economies.
- The exhibition, opened on October 31, aims to promote discussion on the future roles and forms of money.
The Central Bank of Argentina (BCRA) has recently inaugurated an innovative exhibition that integrates Bitcoin mining equipment within an art display for the first time in the history of central banks globally. This exhibit, titled “Art, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Economy” is currently housed at the BCRA’s Historical Museum and opened its doors on October 31.
Argentina’s Central Bank now has a #Bitcoin mining exhibit in its halls.
Central banks that embrace Bitcoin may survive. Those that don’t will perish pic.twitter.com/0VUX7cOsre
— Patrick Lowry (@Patrick_Lowry_) November 1, 2024
The exhibition features the works of Alberto Echegaray, an artist renowned for his exploration of digital and crypto art. Echegaray’s pieces, including his well-known “Moneyballs”—spheres filled with shredded currency—comment on the shift from physical to crypto forms of money. These spheres not only contain shredded U.S. dollars, supplied by the US Treasury, but also discarded Argentine pesos from the BCRA’s own surplus.
“For the first time we are going to find in a museum of a Central Bank, Bitcoin and Ethereum coins. What I want to tell is where financial and monetary systems are going, which are heading towards decentralized systems, which have a close link with artificial intelligence,” he stressed.
This display marks a significant development in the BCRA’s approach to digital currencies, symbolizing a progressive stance on the integration of technology and finance. The exhibition aims to facilitate discussions on the transition away from physical money and to consider the broader implications of a society increasingly reliant on crypto economic systems.
Echegaray’s work at the BCRA invites visitors to reflect on the future roles of money and the economic systems that govern its use. By presenting operational cryptocurrency mining rigs alongside artworks that connect digital assets to live financial data, the exhibition challenges traditional notions of currency and its tangibility.
“Although in Argentina still uses a lot of paper money, if we talk about dollars, less than 10% are printed, the rest is completely digital.”
Overall, this exhibition not only showcases technological innovation but also serves as a medium for public education on the evolving interface between crypto currencies and artistic expression. It reflects a broader trend towards the tokenization of assets and prompts visitors to question the enduring value and function of money in a rapidly digitizing world.