Cypher Deos is my Bitcoin Renaissance triptych, inspired by Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights. Three inner panels tell a visual story about the debt-based fiat money system: where it takes us, what it costs us, and the way out through Bitcoin.
Watch the collector prints up close:
Cypher Deos emulates the extreme level of detail, symbolic references, and innumerable character illustrations from the original renaissance works and brings them into the digital age with animation and sound for an immersive audiovisual experience.
The title continues my tradition of Latin-based names for my bitcoin art collections. It's a play on the term "cypherpunk", a person who uses encryption to defend their privacy, especially from government authorities. Cypher Deos elevates their status from mere punks to gods.
The three inner panels are designed to be displayed together from left to right, while two outer panels serve as a cover for the artwork, just as Bosch's triptychs closed over their own worlds.
The Outer Panels: Two Earths
The outer panels show planet earth divided vertically down the center into two halves: a fiat-denominated earth on the left and a Bitcoin-denominated earth on the right. Before you even open the triptych, the choice is already framed. Two worlds. Two monetary systems. Pick one.
Explore the Cypher Deos collector editions, including the Mundus Vetus and Mundus Novus outer panel prints.
Left Panel: Inferno
The Cypher Deos story starts in a fiat hell, featuring a legion of devilish bankers and their debt slaves. "Control the money, control the people" is the mode of operation. "In Debt We Trust" is the motto.
Every inhabitant of Inferno is crushed under the burden of debt. Greed and debt-based scams abound. Nobody down here chose this system; they were born into it, handed a currency that bleeds value by design, and told to be grateful. That's the hell worth painting: not fire and pitchforks, but compounding interest and a printer that never stops.
The Inferno Collector's Print is a hand-signed edition of 21, with the full animation viewable in augmented reality through the Artivive app.
Sound Design
- Music: Thor by Haxxy
- Sound FX: selected, mixed, and mastered by Lucho Poletti
Center Panel: Purgatorio
Once we've escaped Inferno, Cypher Deos moves into a symbolic purgatory on earth, where the citizens of the world must atone for the sins of the fiat system while a battle rages for a better money system.
Purgatorio uses symbology from end-times prophecy in the book of Revelation to tell a story about the end of the age of fiat currency.
Sound Design
- Music: Cyberpunk by Montee
- Sound FX: selected, mixed, and mastered by Lucho Poletti
Details and Characters
The Whore of Monetary Babylon
The 1%
Oh boy, these folks are really enjoying the easy money. "USD IS GOD".
Fictional Reserve Circus
A private bank with no reserves. NOW PRINTING.
Jay-Pow sits as Fed Chair, propped up by judicious types such as "Bank Examiners" and "Fed Economists", putting a constant flow of new dollars into circulation from his bum-hole.
This carnival may be a bit atypical, and the clowns a bit less friendly than normal, but it does have a happy ending after all. You will own nothing and be happy!
Crucifixion Scene: 3 Cypherpunk Martyrs
Center: Ross Ulbricht, a.k.a. "Dread Pirate Roberts", crucified on a cross bearing his words.
Left: Julian Assange, a.k.a. "Mendax", crucified on a cross bearing his words.
Right: Edward Snowden, a.k.a. "Snow White", crucified on a cross bearing his words.
The Four Horsemen of the Financial Apocalypse
Another piece of symbolism adapted from the end-times prophecies in Revelation.
First Horseman: Conquest
"And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer."
Second Horseman: War
"And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword."
Third Horseman: Debt
"And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand."
Fourth Horseman: Famine
The Purgatorio Collector's Print is the largest panel in the set, a hand-signed edition of 21 with the full AR animation viewable through Artivive.
Right Panel: Paradisus
After our cypherpunk heroes have ascended to the network in the sky and triumphed over the devilish banksters, we get a glimpse of the cypherpunk paradise.
Where Bosch's paradise ran on divine grace, this one runs on proof of work. Nothing up here is granted by authority. Everything is earned, verified, and open.
Sound Design
- Music: The Advance by Alex Norton
- Sound FX: selected, mixed, and mastered by Lucho Poletti
Details and Characters
The Cypherpunk Assembly
At the heart of Paradisus, anonymous whistle-blowers, martyrs for free speech, and not-so-shadowy cyber coders assemble around a representation of the bitcoin system itself. In Inferno, the money sat at the center and people orbited it as slaves. Here the arrangement inverts: free people gather around a system that serves them, because no one controls it. The figures who were punished in the fiat world for telling the truth are honored in this one. That's the entire moral arc of the triptych in a single composition.
Cherubim, Seraphim, and Dominion Angels
Surrounding the assembly are legions of cypherpunk cherubim, seraphim, and dominion angels. Renaissance painters used angelic hierarchies to show an ordered heaven, every being in its rightful place. I borrowed that structure for a decentralized order: no popes, no chairmen, just tiers of participants keeping the system honest. The hierarchy in Paradisus isn't one of power over others. It's one of contribution.
The Node Runners
A network of meditating bitcoin node runners rises above the lake of fire, escaping the flames of the burning fiat money system below. They're the quiet monks of this paradise. Running a node isn't glamorous, and nobody hands out medals for it, but it's the act that keeps the whole heaven verifiable. They meditate because verification is a discipline: don't trust, verify, repeat.
The Network in the Sky
Overhead, the bitcoin network lights up, energized by the ever-increasing hash power from proof of work consensus. The fiat world below burns on borrowed value; the sky above is powered by real, expended energy. In Bosch's paradise the light came from God. In Cypher Deos, it comes from work that anyone on earth can contribute to and no one can counterfeit. That's the closest thing to divine light a monetary system has ever produced.
Cypher Deos Collector Editions
Collector edition prints for the full 5-piece Cypher Deos collection feature augmented reality animations viewable through the free Artivive app.
Individual Prints (Edition of 21)
Individual print editions on Hahnemuehle fine art paper come hand-signed, numbered, and certified, with certificates timestamped on the bitcoin blockchain via Verisart. Museum-grade wood framing with acrylic facing and matting optional.
- Mundus Vetus: Edition of 21, 60 x 26.67cm
- Mundus Novus: Edition of 21, 60 x 26.67cm
- Inferno: Edition of 21, 60 x 26.67cm
- Purgatorio: Edition of 21, 60 x 53.33cm
- Paradisus: Edition of 21, 60 x 26.67cm
Browse the full Cypher Deos collection.
Full Canvas Set (Edition of 9)
The full 5-piece set on 100% cotton canvas, mounted. Each set comes hand-signed, numbered, and certified. Framing and full assembly with outer panels on hinges optional.
- Mundus Vetus: 100 x 44.5cm
- Mundus Novus: 100 x 44.5cm
- Inferno: 100 x 44.5cm
- Purgatorio: 100 x 89cm
- Paradisus: 100 x 44.5cm
The Cypher Deos NFT Drop
The Cypher Deos NFT collection dropped April 29th, 2022 on Nifty Gateway, with ranked auctions (editions of 21) for each of the three animated artworks: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradisus.
Collectors who won all three ranked auction pieces were able to claim a Cypher Deos master NFT, minted only for owners of the full set three weeks after the initial drop (May 20th, 2022). One edition of the master NFT was minted for me.
The drop also included one open edition artwork, featuring the outer panel artwork and the battle in the sky from the center panel.
Cypher Deos is the piece where everything I believe about money and everything I learned from the old masters finally collided. Bosch painted the judgment of souls. I painted the judgment of a monetary system. Fiat had its age. It's ending the way all debt-based empires end, and the way out is already running, block by block.
Better money, better world.
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