Lugano residents woke up today to find that the famous Satoshi Nakamoto statue, an ingenious sight-line illusion envisioned by Italian artist Valentina Picozzi, was gone.
The layers of disappearing stripes were only empty ground where the illusion of Satoshi, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, fading into code stood since late 2024. It was unveiled on October 25, 2024, at Plan B’s Bitcoin forum, as Swiss‑Tether and Lugano raced to brand the city a global Bitcoin hub
The theft was first reported by X user @Grittoshi, who suspected it had been thrown in a lake beside the sculpture.
On X, Satoshigallery, the artistic project run by Picozzi, offered a reward of 0.1 BTC to anyone that could help find the statue.
“We are offering 0.1 btc to whoever will help us recovering the Statue of Satoshi Nakamoto that was stolen yesterday in Lugano,” the X post said. “You can steal our symbol but you will never be able to steal our souls. We are all in this together and committed to place the statue in 21 places round the world.”
The apparent theft just over a week after Satoshi Gallery unveiled its third Satoshi Nakamoto statue in Tokyo, Japan.