The Bitcoin Renaissance is well underway, with the art gallery Bitcoin 2022 serving as an example.

The Bitcoin Renaissance gallery provided a glimpse into the future of how Bitcoin would affect creative works and vice versa. Artists from all over the world gathered to show off their physical and digital work, auction off pieces, and give presentations on a tiny platform adjacent to the gallery.

Bitcoin’s significance and relationship to art cannot be emphasized. Art was a vital influence in the previous Renaissance, which resulted in a tremendous shift in human progress and society. The three primary components of the previous successful Renaissance, according to one interviewee, were decentralized money, decentralized communication, and decentralized identity. 

This article aims to synthesize such criteria and compare them to contemporary indicators that suggest we are entering a new period with comparable characteristics. The Bitcoin Renaissance is here, and we’re only scratching the surface of what it may become.

MONEY AND COMMUNICATION DECENTRALIZATION

I spoke with a number of the exhibiting artists as well as one of the gallery stage presenters. Joshua Rosenthal, Ph.D., a historian who specializes in the period between the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, outlined some of the traits that made the last Renaissance so memorable. He stated that there have been dozens of renaissances throughout history, but none have been as effective as the Renaissance from the 14th to the 17th centuries since previous ones had decentralized technology and were not related to money or communication.

Because the people of the Renaissance period took advantage of a newly rediscovered monetary system of double-entry bookkeeping, the Renaissance period had a lasting impact on history. People with a mobile version of debit and credit could access funds using this type of distributed ledger. “That essentially removed the middlemen or allowed for a decentralized middleman; the middleman being the Church,” Rosenthal said of the double-entry booking.