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One Arm Crypto Bandit

The one arm crypto bandit on a white plinth: a wooden cabinet with two speakers, a screen, a coin slot and a steel lever on its dark side panel.

The one arm crypto bandit is the third artwork of the distributed gallery. Each arm action generates a couple of new Ethereum private keys. If it ever happens that any of these private keys is already in use, its funds become immediately available to the user. Like a bandit, this machine therefore attempts to steal currencies through private keys collision.

Let's note that there are almost as many private keys as atoms in the observable universe. Therefore, the risk of such a collision is close to zero: highly improbable but theoretically not impossible.

This bandit provides its user a concrete and funny experience of cryptography and a sensitive experience of the magnitude scales on which the blockchain security is based. You can't even represent to yourself what 2256 means or what's 115 quattuorvigintillion means.

Once the machine displayed the public keys, private keys, and balance of each account, it randomly plays selected tracks taken from artworks of popular culture (punk rock refrain, movies quotes, video game sounds).

In case a collision happens, the machine plays a unique song that you will probably never hear…

Gallery

Exhibitions

  1. Art Basel · Basel
  2. ETHCC Paris · Maison de la mutualité
  3. P2P Festival · Ground Control
  4. DevConnect · Beurs van Berlage
  5. NFT Paris · Station F
  6. CryptoArtRevolution · Pierre Cardin Museum
  7. Art Fair Dijon

Video

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