Things you can buy with bitcoin: AT&T’s services[1], airfare[2], pretty much anything using gift cards through Bitrefill[3], pizza[4], drugs (duh) and now, Indigenous Australian art.
Yes, you read that right. The Indigenous Fine Art Gallery (IFAG) in Australia now accepts bitcoin for its “museum-quality art from Australia’s most collectible Indigenous artists.” This puts the IFAG in the company of a growing list of art galleries that accept bitcoin for their wares, but it’s the first ever to accept the cryptocurrency for art created by Indigenous Australians.
Sounds pretty niche, right? Accepting payment in the world’s first cryptographic currency for indigenous art, while it still remains difficult to purchase everyday items with bitcoin, may sound a bit too novel to be true. But, in the eyes of the IFAG, the method of payment is more novel than interest in the objects of purchase.
“This form of indigenous art is not necessarily a novelty as such,” IFAG partner David Meese wrote in an email to Bitcoin Magazine. “In fact, it has been traded as a precious commodity for the past 200 odd years, since the very first European settlements in Australia.”
For two commodities that may not appear to share much, bitcoin and Australian Aboriginal art have more in common than meets the eye. Specifically, both have seen a surge of interest in recent years and an accompanying jump in value. Figures shared with Bitcoin Magazine indicate that, over the past three decades, certain rarer pieces of Indigenous Australian art have appreciated over 600 percent per annum, an absolute moonshot in the realm of fine art.
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri’s Warlugulong, for instance, sold for a measly $140 AUD ($96 USD) in 1977.
