I believe Bitcoin is the rarest thing anyone with a collector's instinct can seek. When Bitcoin Inscriptions appeared, I was naturally tempted to enter that world. But something kept telling me that a JPG is not Bitcoin, even if it might look like it.

I thought of René Magritte's famous painting The Treachery of Images (La Trahison des images), better known as This Is Not a Pipe. I asked GPT to explain its meaning. The answer was simple: a picture of a pipe is not an actual pipe. It's merely a representation. Images can represent things, but they are not the things themselves.

Then I asked GPT to replace the word "pipe" with "Bitcoin" in its explanation.

And that's how JPG Is Not Bitcoin came about.

I took the familiar JPG file icon, turned the mountains into a volatility chart, and replaced the sun with the Bitcoin logo. When enlarged, the image breaks down into individual pixels, also referencing the size limitations of Bitcoin Inscriptions. The typography is borrowed from Magritte's painting.

The result is a nine-colour, hand-pulled screen print on black paper, in an edition of 21.

I'm pretty sure it's a good meme, but I'm also aware of its limitations. And since I couldn't resist the temptation, I created Bitcoin Inscription #59015183 as well. I listed it for 1 BTC, with a warning that it has no value.

Prove me wrong.

Bitcoin Inscription #59015183 on Ordinals Wallet

I also owe some inspiration to the discussions about Bitcoin Inscriptions involving Hodlonaut, Giacomo Zucco, Adam Back, Brad Mills, Jimmy Song, David Bailey, Zack Voell, Udi Wertheimer, Eric Wall, and Dan Held. Their debates were what inspired me to create this print in the first place.