Two years ago, controversial artist Nelson Saiers sparked a debate when he erected a massive inflatable rat outside the US Federal Reserve building in New York; now, the creator takes another jab at a US institution with a new crypto art exhibition.
According to a release with NewsBTC, a crypto art installation was placed in front of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This time, Nelson Saiers portrayed a street vendor offering “rug pulls.”
In this latest protest exhibition, Saiers highlighted the crypto-based scam where the team behind a project disappears, leaving their community behind and “holding the bag” for an initial investment. The exhibit aimed to showcase the “ease” of these illegal activities.
Moreover, by setting the crypto art exhibit in front of the SEC, the artist potentially tried to send a message to the regulator: “rug pulls” happened right in front of the institution, seemingly without consequence.
In an exclusive statement shared with NewsBTC, the artist believes the SEC’s shortcomings extended beyond failing to safeguard retail customers. While he acknowledges they have a “very difficult job”, Saiers believes that the regulator was “too lax” in some ways but also “too aggressive in others.”
The artist feels that the SEC’s rejection of certain investments may have, “unfortunately,” led some investors into more fraudulent products.
This is the latest, but far from the only art exhibition where Saiers takes a hit on the US SEC and other financial regulators. As mentioned, the artist set an inflatable Bitcoin rat at the Fed’s building in 2020 and 2018.
A few months later, as the crypto market was experiencing a bull run that took the price of Bitcoin into uncharted territory, Saiers called cheap on the Fed with his “Cheap Money is Out-of-Order.” During this exhibition, which saw the sculpture of the Wall Street Bull interfered with a Saiers-made sculpture, the artist criticized the inflationary measures adopted by the financial institution.
Based in New York, Saiers completed a Ph.D. in mathematics at 23 in one year and is a former trading group manager for Deutsche Bank AG and Chief Investment Officer for Saiers Capital. In art, Saiers is known as the “Warhol of Wall Street.”
As of this writing, Bitcoin trades at $26,200 with sideways movement across the board. The cryptocurrency has been unable to break above or below its current trading range and will likely continue this trajectory until late September.
At that time, macro-economic forces will likely come back into the picture, stirring volatility into the market. In particular, the spot Bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) narrative, mainly in the hands of the SEC, is bound to influence the price of the number one crypto by market cap.
BTC’s price is moving sideways on the daily chart. Source:
Cover image from Unsplash, chart from Tradingview
A literature major, Reynaldo Márquez has been deeply immersed in the crypto industry since 2017. His journey began with translating articles for various crypto news outlets, a role he took on with zeal. In 2018, amidst a challenging market, he embraced his first writing assignment, demonstrating his unwavering commitment to the nascent industry and the promise of change it bears for many people worldwide.
In March 2021, he joined the prestigious crypto news outlet NewsBTC and Bitcoinist, where he not only reported on the latest crypto news but also had the privilege of interviewing some of the industry's most influential figures. A year later, his dedication and hard work were recognized, and he was promoted to Managing Editor, a position he currently holds with pride.
He believes in honesty, good communication, hard work, and the power of cryptocurrency and its potential to transform people's lives, especially those alienated by the legacy financial system. Born in 1992 in Venezuela, Reynaldo is familiar with how governments and central banks can negatively affect people, their everyday lives, and their futures by creating inflation and erasing their hopes for a better future. Thus, like many Venezuelans, he embraced this new technology to help him and his family navigate difficult times.
In another life, Reynaldo would have pursued a career as an investigator, most likely tracking down the origins of the Cyberpunk movement with the publication of William Gibson’s ‘Neuromancer.’ The intersection between fiction and reality, with the materialization of Bitcoin in 2009, would have allowed him to dive deep into the crypto sphere as something more than a financial phenomenon but also a cultural shift in society that was brewing since the XX century, and maybe even sooner, in the XIX century with the publication of Henry David Thoreau’s ‘Civil Disobedience.’
But that’s for another life. In this one, Reynaldo has been trading to improve his trading skills. Since 2023, he has been trying to learn Python to create successful strategies and find ways to execute them. It is a difficult task, which continues to keep him busy today and will most likely continue to keep him busy in the near and long term.
In his free time, he enjoys lifting heavy objects, reading, watching movies, and listening to his favorite music. Some of his favorite authors are Walt Whitman, William Faulkner, Allen Ginsberg, James Baldwin, Raymond Carver, Ray Bradbury, George Orwell, Mario Vargas Llosa, Reinaldo Arenas, Rafael Cadenas, and many others. Lately, he has been primarily interested in reading about dystopic societies, a topic that deeply resonates with the crypto industry.
Since 2023, he has lived in Spain with his wife. He loves the weather, the food, and the people and their culture. They both expect to travel much more within the country they now call home and beyond its border. He hopes to retire with his wife, maybe in a quiet place near a beach, but most likely in a city close to a library and a university with his kids and, hopefully, grandkids.
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