The house has rewritten rules since 1913. Nobody's rewritten 21 million since 2009 (Bitcoin art)

Fiat Ludus: Let there be a game. It's Bruegel's Children's Games redrawn for the fiat age, and #04 of my Ten Decrees series. Fiat is Latin for "let it be done." Ludus means game and the Romans used the same word for the schools where gladiators trained. The biggest one, the Ludus Magnus (top center building in this artwork), was right next to the Colosseum.

Bruegel painted Children's Games in 1560 with over 230 kids playing 83 different games and no adults anywhere in it. The kids made up their own rules, and if they didn't like a game they could go start another one. In mine adults are involved and every game is run by the house, skulls with a $ on them who write the rules and change them as they please.

Print, 30 x 20 inches

A tour of the whole town

HOUSE RULES

In the game hall the house posts its rules on the wall. #4, RULES MAY CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE, is the one the dollar runs on. You don't get a vote on how many more dollars get printed next year.

Next to it, the BAILOUT arcade game is stuck on GAME OVER, CONTINUE? INSERT TAXPAYER.

1. PLAY 2. PAY 3. STAY

There's one rule the house can't touch, and a guy has it printed on his shirt: 21 MILLION.

ENROLL, AGES 5 TO 65

ENROLL, AGES 5 TO 65, EASY LOANS, APPLY NOW.. kindergarten to retirement, and easy loans are available. Hanging next to the sign is a big ₿ with BETTER MONEY, BETTER WORLD wrapped around it. If you look closely at the top right of this shot, you'll see two glass bubbles dated 1637 and 1720, and 1929 and 2008. Four of the most infamous financial bubbles in history.

$1.00 down to DEBT

The hopscotch starts at $1.00 and every square is worth less until you land on DEBT. The chalkboard to the right of it says 2% IS HEALTHY and INFLATION IS TRANSITORY, both lines I took straight from the Fed. A child writes PLAN ₿ at the bottom.

HOUSE 9 YOU 0

Down by the soccer goal there's a velvet rope line leading up to a sign that says KYC, WAIT HERE. The line is empty and the cameras are on the games. On the balcony a masked woman holds up the score: HOUSE 9 YOU 0.

MORITURI TE SALUTANT

Just above the arena it says MORITURI TE SALUTANT, "those who are about to die salute you". In the pit a $ skull recruiter holds out an enrollment form for a young man to sign. The fiat wolf is down there with them, looming over a broken piggy bank.

RESERVES ZERO PERCENT SINCE 2020

A wishing well with SAVINGS ACCOUNT engraved on it sits on top of the bank vault, and the plaque by the vault door says RESERVES ZERO PERCENT SINCE 2020. The Fed cut bank reserve requirements to zero on March 26, 2020. Two women who escaped the cells on both sides of the vault are riding a mechanical bull, facing the vault operators.

Toward the top of this shot is a set of teetering currency blocks arranged like a crooked staircase: the pound and 1931 (when Britain came off gold), the dollar and 1971 (when the US ended the gold standard), the yen and 1973, the euro and 1999, the ruble, and Z$ 2008, which is when Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation peaked. The won from 1997 is falling into a chute lettered SLIDE TO ZERO, and a Venezuelan bolívar from 2018 is already in it.

The TARGET 2% cauldron is in flames, with Hungary’s 1946 pengő dropping in from the chute and Weimar’s 1923 mark already in the fire. 1946 in Hungary was the worst hyperinflation ever recorded.

Down in the bottom right corner there’s a frog slowly boiling in a pot that reads 2%.

3,000 SATS

There's one price in the town square that goes down. A man sells carrots off a crate with a chalk sign: 7,500 crossed out, 5,000 crossed out, now 3,000 SATS.

Priced in sats things get cheaper over time.. that's what happens when no one can print more of the money.

WHITE PAPER and key

Out on the open ground there's a relay. One runner carries a scroll that says WHITE PAPER and the runner in orange with the ₿ on his chest is passing a key to the next one. Satoshi published the white paper in 2008, and since then, anybody can read the rules for themselves.

Me with the print

The artwork in these shots was printed at 30 x 20 inches on Hahnemühle German Etching paper, 18000x12000 at 600 pixels per inch, and a few of the close-ups come straight from the digital file. The last photo is me with the print in my studio, each one hand signed and numbered.

Feel free to use the first image as a wallpaper. You can find my full write-ups and side-by-side comparisons with the original Bruegel and Bosch pieces for every piece from this series so far on my website.

Better money, better world.

Lucho Poletti