Original author: The Worlds Savior
The unexpected reunion of art and Web3
Recently, Binance’s official Twitter account has posted a series of art-related tweets, sparking the public’s endless imagination about tokens in the art field.
Although art and Web3 user groups originally had limited intersections, with the $ban of Sothebys executives and a mysterious tweet from $Mundi: If a new savior is born, we wont believe it, these two seemingly unreachable worlds have strangely overlapped.
Then on December 1, Binance released a tweet adapted from Caravaggios The Doubt of Saint Thomas, which mainly tells the story of how the disciples finally became convinced after touching Jesus wounds. The vague echoes of the two tweets cast an elusive veil of mystery over $Mundi.
Salvator Mundi: The missing code of art
This last masterpiece of Leonardo da Vinci depicts Jesus Christ blessing with his right hand and holding a crystal ball in his left hand, symbolizing the Lord of the Universe. In 2017, it was sold at Christies for $450 million, setting a new record for art auctions. However, at the moment the auction hammer fell, the painting seemed to have evaporated.
There are two main speculations about the whereabouts of the painting:
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hides it on his private yacht
Painting may be hidden in secret location in Switzerland
One of the key followers of $Mundi’s official Twitter account, WSJ reporter Bradley Hope, has close ties to the Saudi royal family. In his latest tweet, he hinted that according to his biography Blood and Sand, Salman plans to build a dedicated art gallery for Salvator Mundi. In August 2024, the BBC further confirmed that the painting may be exhibited at the Museum of Future Art in Riyadh, where it will become the finale of the cultural collection like the Mona Lisa.
Who is the mysterious driving force behind $Mundi?
Behind the rapid rise of $Mundi, there seems to be an unusual conspiracy group:
Wintermute Market Maker Follow this Twitter (Address ranked first holds 5% of tokens)
Christies legendary auctioneer @GouzerLoic
WSJ reporter, author of Blood and Oil @bradleyhope
Many KOLs with millions of followers posted Savior tweets and gestures
@CoinDesk continues to track
The fact that these bigwigs from the art world, finance, and Saudi Arabia continue to pay attention to Mundi indicates that a cross-border meme experiment is brewing.
Cross-border experiment between art and meme
Sothebys comedian case is a classic: a banana stuck to the wall was sold at a sky-high price of $6.2 million. Behind this was the participation of Sothebys executives in the issuance of $BAN tokens, which successfully attracted meme investors in the cryptocurrency circle.
Christie’s is clearly not far behind. Loic Gouzer, who participated in the Comedian auction, frequently interacted with $Mundi, perhaps suggesting that traditional art institutions are looking for new ways to communicate with Web3.
$Mundi: Reconstructing the value of art
The art world has changed dramatically, and the financial world is also evolving.
So why is art valuable? I believe that the value of art lies not only in its beauty or history, but also in the human behavior and collective imagination surrounding it. Just as the Mona Lisa has long been integrated into the cultural consciousness, the Salvator Mundi now stands at the crossroads of the art and meme communities.
The emergence of $Mundi offers a bold idea: the combination of the two does not divide ownership, but expands the value of paintings through the meme ecosystem. This is a new model based on faith, connecting culture and finance. Holders are not only investors, but also participants in the story, providing a new generation with the opportunity to participate in the legacy of Salvator Mundi.
Imagine the future of painting
When the painting was re-released, it not only caused a sensation in the art world, but also $Mundi and the WEB3 community will amplify its narrative, and see whether its value can rise from $450 million to $1 billion. This is not only a rethinking of the value of art, but also a challenge to the nature of value creation, symbolizing the integration of art, blockchain and memetics.
While the clues are hard to come by, $Mundi may just be the beginning of a larger plan.
