Non-fungible Coins • Vlakovanci • 火车硬币 • عملة القطار
Preventing hyperinflation by burning fiat
The NFT artworks of fiat coins flattened by trains and removed from circulation, declare the beginning of a new era of decentralized finance.
Hyperinflation — the killer of value
Anything can be money as long as it fulfills these fundamental use cases: a unit of account, a medium of exchange, and a store of value.
In economics, hyperinflation is rapid, excessive and typically accelerating inflation. It quickly erodes the real value of the local currency, as the prices of all goods and services increase, typically measuring more than 50% per month.
One of the ways to prevent hyperinflation is reducing the production of currency (coins and printed bills). The other is altering the currency basis. One form this may take is the use of a decentralized currency as a medium of exchange.*
*Venezuelans try to beat hyperinflation with cryptocurrency
Since 1920, at least 55 hyperinflation events have taken place, destroying savings and creating economic hardship. Such events generally result from the mismanagement of financial systems and the economy by central governments. Bitcoin offers the world an alternative – a sound monetary system outside the control of governments and central banks. — NYDIG
Crypto is about banking the unbanked, and unbanking the banked. It’s attempting to usher in a more equitable financial system and open, free markets. — Bankless
About the NFT project
The Flat Fiat project prevents hyperinflation by reducing the production of fiat currencies and altering the currency basis.
Flat Fiat, the NFT artwork collection, consists of flattened fiat coins made for numismatists, art collectors, DeFi, and DAO communities that want to change the base currency to decentralized crypto and accelerate the monetary revolution.
The fiat coins with different designs are taken from circulation. They’re placed on the train railway, waiting to be flattened by a train. After that, they get scanned and minted as a unique NFT.
Fiat currencies lack transparency, have variable monetary policies, are highly unpredictable, and require third parties for transactions. Bitcoin is the exact opposite — fully transparent, with a programmatic monetary policy, completely predictable, and removes the need for a third party. The monetary revolution will be winner take (nearly) all, which means that monetary maximalism is the only natural end state. — Pomp
The rise of an ecosystem of financial services, known as decentralised finance, or DeFi, deserves sober consideration. It has the potential to rewire how the financial system works, with all the promise and perils that entails. The proliferation of innovation in DeFi is akin to the frenzy of invention in the early phase of the web. At a time when people live ever more of their lives online, the crypto-revolution could even remake the architecture of the digital economy. — The Economist
The Collection
What you get 🌝
1. The NFT artwork
• an NFT from the Flat Fiat collection¹
• each digital artwork is a unique video of a different burned fiat coin
• hand-made by The Miha Artnak and trains
• proof of burn²
2. Revolution membership
• proof of public service³
• proof of belief⁴Ownership You Own the NFT. Each of the FlatFiat is an NFT on the Internet Computer blockchain. When you purchase an NFT, you own the underlying FlatFiat, the Art, completely, including for commercial purposes — as long as you own the NFT.
Flat Fiat
Limited edition
Fiat coins flattened by trains will be available as NFTs. The physical fiat coins that were removed will be exhibited in galleries and events as a physical documentation of proof of burn.
Exhibitions
Aksioma gallery
Numismatic NFT exhibition, Ljubljana, 2022
The Byzantine Generals Problem
Online group exhibition at distant.gallery, 2022
An alternative to capitalism, or capitalism at its worst? An emancipatory network economy where everyone has a stake, or a dystopian panopticon where only the best man wins? An opportunity for democracy, or a techno-libertarian wet dream? A new creative economy or a pyramid scheme? A planet saver or a planet burner? Rarely has the debate around a technology been so polarised as with blockchains, Web3 and NFTs. We are facing a problem of consensus, trapped within a Byzantine Generals Problem.A group of generals is besieging Byzantium. In order to avoid catastrophic failure, they must agree on a concerted strategy, but some of them are unreliable. Used to illustrate how consensus is reached within distributed systems, this allegory can be applied to blockchains as well as societies. Yet, in a peer-to-peer debate with no central authority, consensus is hard to reach for a reason; and the disagreeing general, the unreliable actor, may be our best resource against the common sense of the crypto-yuppies.
The Byzantine Generals Problem is an online exhibition focused on artworks which do not avoid an engagement with blockchains and crypto culture, but do so in a critically constructive way: questioning dominant narratives, raising problems and sometimes proposing alternative solutions.
Featuring works by Anna Ridler, Ben Grosser, Constant Dullaart, DIS, FaceOrFactory, Kyle McDonald, LaTurbo Avedon, Moxie Marlinspike, Nascent, Rhea Myers, Sarah Friend, Sarah Meyohas, Simon Denny / Guile Twardowski / Cosmographia, Sterling Crispin, The Miha Artnak
Production: Aksioma Institute for Contemporary Art Ljubljana
Curated by: Domenico Quaranta
Link to the online exhibition: https://distant.gallery/the-byzantine-generals-problem
Izgovori / Excuses
Group exhibition at Cirkulacija 2, 2023
The exhibition intertwines two directions of artistic activity, namely the humorous play with technology, which in a way becomes an end in itself, and humorous, performative interventions as an expressive means of responding to current, mainly socio-political realities.
Featuring works by Vadim Fishkin, name:, Danilo Milovanović, Stephan Doepner & Aphra Tesla, The Miha Artnak
Sibiu Contemporary Art Festival
Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu, Romania, 2023
Chairity
auction, 2022
Slovenian artists provided artistic interventions on Niko Kralj’s chairs for the charity campaign in Cukrarna. The raised funds will go for efforts to recover the devastated city of Kharkiv.
Link to the event https://cukrarna.art/sl/program/dogodki/76/2022-06-20/19-00/chairity/
The biggest bank in Slovenia
Projection of the NFT artworks
In media
Why and how the Flat Fiat NFTs are made
THΞ DAO1ST
Watch THΞ DAO1ST episode with Buddha La and The Miha Artnak below to see why and how the Flat Fiat coin collection is being produced.
Evening news
RTV
ZN media
Planet TV
Dfinity Pill
Money-How
7 figure ideas podcast
Widewalls
Artnet News
Money burning for commodity value
Fiat money can sometimes be destroyed by converting it into commodity form, rather than completely forfeiting the value of the money. Sometimes, currency intended for use as fiat money becomes more valuable as a commodity, usually when inflation causes its face value to fall below its intrinsic value. For example, in India in 2007, Rupee coins disappeared from the market when their face value dropped below the value of the stainless steel from which they were made. Similarly, in 1965, the US government had to switch from silver to copper-nickel clad quarter coins because the silver value of the coins had exceeded their face value and were being melted down by individuals for profit. The same occurred to 5-franc coins of Switzerland, which up to the year 1969 were minted using a silver alloy. At the peak of inflation in the Weimar Republic, people burned banknotes for warmth, as their face value had fallen below their value as fuel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_burning
About the author
The Miha Artnak
The Miha Artnak (Michelangelo da Lubiana) is a Ljubljana-based artist, activist, and entrepreneur, active since the 2000s. His satirical paintings, environmental installations, and subversive performances make him one of the most talked-about artists of the last decade.
