Crypto hater Peter Schiff drops Bitcoin Ordinal’s NFT art collection
In what seems like a parody, but isn’t, economist, gold champion and ardent crypto-skeptic Peter Schiff has unveiled a collaborative nonfungible token (NFT) art collection on Bitcoin that will soon be auctioned.
Reaction from the crypto community has been mixed, with people generally confused, amused, accommodating – especially Ordinals supporters – or keen to point out the apparent hypocrisy.
For years, Schiff has been actively bashing crypto – particularly Bitcoin (BTC) – at every chance he gets, with his arguments mainly revolving around BTC being a Ponzi scheme with no intrinsic value.
Despite all this, Schiff unveiled the “Golden Triumph” collection via a Twitter thread on May 27, in collaboration with one of his “favorite artists” who goes by the pseudonym Market price.
“This collaboration features the original ‘Golden Triumph’ painting as well as a series of prints and ordinals inscribed on the Bitcoin blockchain,” he wrote.
Golden Triumph consists of one physical painting on oil linen canvas depicting a human hand holding a gold bar, 50 prints on archival paper depicting the same image and 50 digital versions inscribed as Ordinal NFTs on Bitcoin.
The collection will be sold via a two-part auction starting on June 2 and ending on June 9. For Ordinals, the highest bidder will receive #1 of the collection, with the next 49 highest bidders receiving #2 through #50 in descending order.
However, it seems that Schiff has not done a complete turnaround on BTC, and instead has woken up to a use case for blockchain technology; verifiable ownership of assets such as art via NFTs.
Commenting on Schiff’s Twitter post, user @LoneStartBitcoin asked: “So… putting your “gold” inscriptions on Bitcoin is valuable, but bitcoin [BTC] in itself is not valuable?”
“Correct,” Schiff replied.
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Alongside his disdain for crypto, Schiff has also criticized NFTs on several occasions recently.
For example, in a March 2021 blog post, Schiff described NFTs as “fake assets” that offer nothing more than ownership of a digital image that can be “infinitely replicated” online.
“However, even as the owner of the image, you will not be able to control access to it. The file has been copied thousands of times, so anyone with access to the internet can look at it as much as you,” he wrote.
The sharp change in sentiment follows a similar spirit to that of former US President Donald Trump, who has also hit out aggressively against crypto on several occasions before getting involved in NFTs.
Back in December, Trump teased a “big announcement” that MAGA supporters believed was politically related, before unveiling the licensed Trump Digital Trading Card collection.
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