CENTS · the block

CENTS Block Copper & CENTS Block 839969

Rutherford Chang · the object and its inscription

The copper block in a vitrine at UCCA Beijing, flanked by screens showing the catalogued cents and the three-dimensional model — CENTS Block Copper at UCCA Beijing, with the catalogue and the model shown alongside. Photography Sun Shi. Courtesy UCCA and the Estate of Rutherford Chang.

The object

CENTS Block Copper

The 10,000 copper Lincoln cents that comprise the digital set CENTS were destroyed and smelted into a 68.56-pound block, titled CENTS Block Copper. This object resides with the Estate of Rutherford Chang.

The inscription itself, a 4 MB glTF model, served and rendered live by ordinals.com. Drag to turn it.

The inscription

CENTS Block 839969

The physical block was rendered as a three-dimensional digital model and in turn inscribed as a 4-megabyte ordinal, comprising the entirety of Bitcoin block #839969. This object was auctioned at Christie’s Beyond the Screen and resides in a private collection.

Equivalent to casting a copper ingot so heavy and dense that it is indestructible, inscribing this data on the fundamental structure of the blockchain forms an immutable digital monument.

Ezra Shibboleth

Project description At UCCA Beijing Back to CENTS Trait Explorer ↗

Rutherford Chang, CENTS, 2017–2024. 10,000 copper cents removed from circulation, documented, and inscribed as ordinals on 10,000 satoshis; the coins smelted into CENTS Block Copper, itself rendered and inscribed as CENTS Block 839969, the entirety of Bitcoin block #839969.