ART ONLINE
Collector pays for painting in bitcoins
Sold in seconds, virtually
Last week Romanian artist Stefania Nistoreanu joined a club of just a handful of fellow artists when she sold a painting using bitcoin. An art collector in Hong Kong bought Nistoreanu’s painting, Cryptsy, for two bitcoin (worth US$4,500 on the day) in a transaction that took a few seconds. Nistoreanu had listed the work on website BitPremier, where you can buy almost anything, including art, jewellery and even real estate, using the electronic digital currency. But the sale of this oil and gold leaf on canvas was important because it marked the fact that many are now embracing bitcoin as a safe, acceptable digital currency for trade online. Bitcoin exists in a decentralised financial system and is not controlled by any government. It can be exchanged quickly for cash at the rate of the day. Interestingly, Cryptsy depicts a code dedicated to an avant-garde civilisation and features primordial symbols, along with mathematical elements borrowed from cryptography. Nistoreanu has another...
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