Moneta Divina: Transmutation by Lucho Poletti
Transmutation: ”The act or process of changing something completely, especially into something different."
The second piece in the Moneta Divina series, Transmutation shows an eerie depiction of what's happening behind the scenes with the fiat money system and takes viewers on a symbolic journey through a steampunk junkyard built around the banking system.
The base image is composed using a heap of mechanical junk intricately layered and opened in a cross-section, revealing a factory assembly line at the base of the image which illustrates the conversion of government debt into a heavy flow of newly printed dollars, i.e. inflation.
The animation begins with a debt bomber flying through a time-distorted realm dropping bombs that appear as skull-shaped bags, meant to symbolize military expenditures and bring to question the need to create public debt & print money to pay for this sort of thing.
We follow the debt bombs down onto a factory assembly line, where they are labeled “Debt”, given dollar symbols for eyes, and filled with toxic debt. Once filled, the debt bags are passed on to a magic money printer which transforms the new debt into paper money and funnels it directly to private banks.
As the flow of newly printed dollars reaches the bank, it is diverted towards 3 hot air balloons above - escape vehicles for bankers to fly off with the money before the inflation takes hold. The bank finally explodes, leaving a void for a new system to come in and replace it.
A heavy flow of dollars comes gushing out from underneath the destroyed bank and a decentralized money system, represented by a tree made of wires and cogs sprouts up and grows into place. Sitting atop this mighty tree we find an eagle (representing freedom) and pair of orange crows (representing truth & knowledge). We also catch a glimpse of a woman blasting across the screen and upwards on a bitcoin rocket, evading a wicked dollar-based witch and two anonymous steampunk gentlemen floating on magic carpets, enjoying the show.
A set of mechanical animals is revealed as the camera pans back to reveal the full scene - a bear and minotaur to symbolize market participants in bitcoin, elephants to symbolize market trends, a lion and tiger to symbolize the holders of last resort, a peacock symbolizing the beauty of bitcoin and a turkey symbolizing the not-so-beautiful fiat system.
The animation ends with the appearance of an 8-armed Femme Satoshi goddess based on a mix of Hindu deities and Juno Moneta, the ancient Roman money goddess & protectress of funds. The bitcoin goddess figure appears perched on the base of a lotus flower that comes down from the sky to contain the economic energy from the inflating dollars and coming to life; symbolizing the transmutation of the economic energy which otherwise would be destroyed.
The symbolic process of Transmutation is intended to shed light on how debt-based fiat money is created, who benefits from it, how sustainable it is, and most importantly how bitcoin is transforming the world for better amidst the chaos and destruction.