In what appears to be a travesty but isn’t, economist, gold proponent, and crypto-skeptic enthusiast Peter Schiff unveiled a collaborative art collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Bitcoin that will be auctioned soon.
Reaction from the crypto community has been mixed, with people generally bemused, amused, welcoming — especially ordinal proponents — or eager to point out the apparent hypocrisy.
it’s a hack isn’t it?
did i just teleport to a different timeline?
I’m so confused
—Deezy (@CryptoDmack) May 26, 2023
For years, Schiff has actively criticized crypto – especially Bitcoin (BTC) – at every opportunity, with his arguments essentially revolving around the fact that BTC is a Ponzi scheme that has no inherent value.
Despite all this, Schiff unveiled the “Golden Triumph” collection via a May 27 Twitter thread, in collaboration with one of his “favorite artists” who goes by the pseudonym. Market price.
“This collaboration includes the original ‘Golden Triumph’ painting as well as a series of prints and ordinals inscribed on the Bitcoin blockchain,” he wrote.
– Eric Wall ♂️ Taproot Wizard #2 (@ercwl) May 26, 2023
golden triumph consists of a physical painting on oil linen of a human hand holding a bar of gold, 50 archival paper prints of the same image, and 50 digital versions listed as ordinal NFTs on Bitcoin.
The collection will be sold via a two-part auction beginning June 2 and ending June 9. For Ordinals, the highest bidder will receive number 1 in the collection, with the next 49 highest bidders receiving numbers 2 through 50 in descending order. order.
It seems, however, that Schiff hasn’t made a complete U-turn on BTC, and has instead woken up with 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…it’s valuable to put your ‘gold’ listings on bitcoin, but bitcoin (BTC) itself has no value?.”
“Correct,” Schiff replied.
Related: Peter Schiff accuses ‘too much government regulation’ of worsening financial crisis
Along with his disdain for crypto, Schiff has also criticized NFTs many times in the past..
For example, in a March 2021 blog post, Schiff describe NFTs as “fake assets” that offer nothing but ownership of a digital image that can be “infinitely replicated” online.
“But even as the owner of the image, you won’t be able to control access to it. The file has been copied thousands of times, so anyone with internet access can view it as much as you can,” he wrote.
1 What pic.twitter.com/TsBqaRJnPI
— wab.eth (@wabdoteth) May 26, 2023
The drastic shift in sentiment follows a similar vein to former US President Donald Trump, who also aggressively criticized crypto on several occasions before getting involved in NFTs.
In December, Trump teased a “major announcement” that MAGA supporters believed was politically linked, before unveiling the licensed collection of Trump digital trading cards.
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