Famous French street artist, Pascal Boyart, has had an unexpected financial windfall after an admirer gifted him 1 Bitcoin, but it’s the way that donation was made that might blow your mind.
The pro-Bitcoin artist has been affixing QR codes to his artworks allowing anyone with a smart phone and a crypto wallet to donate to Boyart directly.
Over the past year Boyart has received a number of small donations from admirers of 3 murals with QR codes, but yesterday he announced on Reddit a single person had just sent him 1 Bitcoin, valued at around US$4000 based on today’s prices.
“Yesterday I received 1 bitcoin on my street art QR codes donation adress! After one year and 3 frescoes in Paris: 1.14 BTC received + 5 BCH and 1.5 LTC in total!” wrote Boyart.
“Thanks to the crypto community for your generosity, this space is full of surprises…Can’t wait to do more murals to spread crypto!”
The donation was made through a QR code painted beside the artist’s ‘Fresque Liberté guidant le peuple 2019‘ mural in Paris.
Boyart doesn’t know the identity of the generous donor.
Bitcoin donations and Bitcoin rewards
Pascal Boyart is not only receiving Bitcoin, he’s also been giving it away through his murals.
Influential Bitcoin entrepreneur Alistair Milne has assisted Boyart in essentially hiding Bitcoin in his murals and encouraging people to solve ‘puzzles’ in order to get the digital currency.
Fresque Liberté guidant le peuple 2019, contained .26 hidden Bitcoin.
After finishing the work in early January, Boyart revealed a public key on Twitter and encouraged fans to work out the private key – 12 recovery words to access the .26 Bitcoin.
First, the secret location of the mural had to be found, but it only took a week for someone to find it and solve the puzzle to access the wallet.
#StreetArt treasure hunt in Paris with a #Bitcoin puzzle
For the 10th birthday of the genesis block, I painted this frescoe in Paris with a 0,26btc ($1000) puzzle in it.
Here's the public key: 1NqPwPp7hEXZ3Atj77Ue11xAEMmXqAXwrQ Thanks to @alistairmilne for sponsoring this 🙏 pic.twitter.com/F7aIkxmp6t— Pascal Boyart 🎨 (@pascalboyart) January 7, 2019