How obxium casually played along with two other artists in an utterly uncoordinated & untitled performance crypto art piece involving wallet addresses, private keys, CryptoKitties and #arthistory
First, Kevin Abosch posted his artwork “Stealing The Contents Of This Wallet Is A Crime,” which consists of a solid red field along with an Ethereum wallet address and private key in white text, plus the warning “STEALING THE CONTENTS OF THIS WALLET IS A CRIME”.
0x901B679CCbF3d333f8EE0F15366b11B637bc72aA
c143981e49af93dcc007923ad47ff4ee0074c3139249eace5792278075d7d88e
Initially the wallet did contain some items of value, presumably including tokens representing Abosch’s other works, such as IAMACOIN. The concept and wallet both piqued initial curiosity in the crypto art community at a large, and it was only a matter of time before someone ganked something from it.
It turns out that another artist, shortcut had placed a CryptoKitty, IAMA Kitty into the wallet after Abosch announced it.
They’d gifted the Crypto Kitty because of a previous interaction with the wallet.
Act I: borrowing this kitty is not a crime
When I first examined this wallet, I noticed the contents and decided to borrow IAMA Kitty into one of my own wallets.
I did so, and it went wild! Incessantly breeding with one of my own kitties, Yung Pumpkin Spice in a frenzy. The result was that IAMA Kitty basically took over my kitty household and sired at least 3 other kitties before I could even return the horny little monster to the wallet from whence he came! 🤣
After IAMA Kitty finished procreating with my precious Yung Pumpkin Spice, I sent him back to the wallet for good.
I didn’t give the situation much thought for a while, until one day I noticed the CryptoKitties, was reminded about the whole thing, and asked shortcut to clarify some details about the wallet and IAMA Kitty. After looking at the transaction history, it became clear to me that shortcut actually put IAMA Kitty into the Abosch wallet, and it wasn’t part of the original contents when released as the art project.
I asked shortcut why he did this and he explained that he got some IAMACOIN from Kevin and in turn, sent IAMA Kitty to the wallet as a gift in kind.
Act II: AND THEN?
Now it appears that someone else has removed IAMA Kitty from the Abosch wallet yet again! It is reported that Abosch tweeted about it being “stolen” on November 13 2020.
Somehow I stole my own possession?!
According to this article on November 16th, Kevin Abosch admits to taking IAMA Kitty for himself because his daughter liked it.
#DadOps
Act III: BONUS ROUND
Hey Kevin, if you’re reading this, please hit me up with an ETH address you control (that doesn’t have the private key published), and I’ll gift you the “Loki Boopkins” CryptoKitty since that one looks most like IAMA Kitty and will help bring this whole cosmic entanglement full circle.
Yours in art 🖼✌️
obxium
