Cheapest art piece sold for $0.000000037

A very small piece of art made from an one dollar bill and counterfeit detector pen ink was sold for one milli-satoshi, which is equivalent of $0.000000037. The piece was made by a Reddit user who goes by the name of Cryptograffiti. The artwork called ‘Black Swan’ was auctioned as a promotion for Bitcoin’s Lightning Network.

Normally 1 satoshi is the smallest possible amount of bitcoin you’re able to send. One satoshi is 0.00000001 bitcoin. Thanks to the use of the Lightning Network, a satoshi can apparently be divided by a thousand.

“I’m excited about a future where micropayments are omnipresent. Artists paid by the view…writers by the poem…musicians by the listen. Everyday interactions complemented by positive monetary reinforcement such as tipping someone who let you merge into traffic.” — Cryptograffiti told his audience.

The Lightning Network is an additional layer on top of the existing bitcoin network. This layer allows users to circumvent the original, slower network that’s powered by miners. The Lightning Network is powered by nodes, which are computers run by third parties. This system is much faster and cheaper to uphold, but it doesn’t create any new bitcoin. That’s something that’s only done by mining bitcoin.

The Black Swan is very small. It measures 1.44 in x 1.75 in (3.55 cm x 4.44 cm).

Originally published at NEDEROB.