Joachim Tantau, home

Cypher

Crypto Currents

A light sculpture that shows the hidden order beneath the blockchain and the crypto market.

By designer maker Joachim Tantau, Hamburg

Limewood & metal pigmentØ 97 cmEdition of 212026
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Video · opening loop

Footage of the real sculpture will play here: a silent loop of 20 to 40 seconds that starts by itself, with the blinking segments, a close-up of the metallic surface and one block being found.

The idea

When the market is calm, the order of the blockchain shows. When the crowd turns irrational, noise drowns it.

The core of Cypher is a contrast. On one side stands the architecture of the blockchain, which follows number and arithmetic and cannot be argued with. On the other side stands the crowd, the market, which acts irrationally and in haste. Cypher's 21 segments show how much of each can be seen at any moment.

Above the flicker stands a seven-pointed figure, the heptagon. It stands for what holds the system together: the protocol, the arithmetic and the rules nobody can bend. You can see it clearly when the market is calm. When the crowd takes over, it recedes beneath the noise, but it never disappears.

Fear, greed and hype look the same. All of them are noise. Cypher does not show whether prices rise or fall, only whether the order underneath can still be seen.

The noise is not one index. Cypher reads the crowd from many sides at once and compares each reading with its own habits. It gives this order a form you can see. It does not predict and it does not advise. It interprets, the way an artist interprets a landscape.

Try it. Move the slider.

CalmThe market simply works. The seven rays stand clear.

The sculpture, right now

Bitcoin and crypto, turned into light, 24/7

Cypher follows the blockchain network, not the clock.

Crypto never closes, so Cypher knows no trading day and no weekend. It follows the Bitcoin network around the clock: how busy it is, how agitated the crowd around it is, and how Bitcoin stands against the other coins.

The drawing shows the sculpture as it is right now.

The light

A cool, sparkling eye-catcher for carefully designed spaces.

The light is a silvery white and always in motion. Each segment lights inward and outward on its own and blinks at its own tempo. In calm hours the blinking is soft enough for a living room, and when the crowd is agitated it fills the wall around the sculpture.

Colour is used sparingly. It shifts with the balance between Bitcoin and the other coins, and it is never bright. The overall brightness can be adjusted to the room.

Behind the light is a program that reads the crypto market and the Bitcoin network itself and turns them into patterns of light. Because the market never repeats, neither does the light.

Cypher also keeps three rhythms of the protocol, each one slower than the last. A visitor sees the first, an owner learns all three.

Every block · about 10 minutes

A block is found

About every ten minutes the network finds a block, one rare number that can only be found by trying, and a new block of transactions is sealed for good. Cypher marks the moment with a burst of light of its own.

Every 2,016 blocks · about 2 weeks

The difficulty adjusts

A slower pulse of the network, marked in the light. An owner will learn to recognise it.

Every 210,000 blocks · about 4 years

The halving

Once in about four years the network halves its reward. It happens so rarely that an owner may see it only once or twice.

Video · a block is found

The real sculpture at the moment a block is found.

Twenty-one is three times seven. The heptagon is always there, and the triangle comes only with a block.

Photograph · in a room

Cypher on a wall, the sparkle spreading across it.

Photograph · close-up

Part of the ring seen close, the graphite surface catching the light.

Why geometry

Wherever there is order, there is number. In space, number becomes geometry.

For a long time people understood the world as built on number. Geometry was number in space, music was number in sound, astronomy was number in the heavens. Over the centuries we came to trust mostly material things.

Bitcoin brings something very old back in a new form. A coin is not a thing but an entry in a shared ledger, protected by arithmetic. Ownership is a number, a signature is a calculation, and even the total supply is a sum fixed in code:

10.5 + 5.25 + 2.625 + 1.3125 + … = 21 million

Cypher neither celebrates this nor condemns it. It shows what happens to an order made only of number when people crowd around it.

Cypher is built on twenty-one, the number of coins there will ever be. Twenty-one is three times seven and divides by nothing else, so its ring holds only two figures: the heptagon, which is always there, and the triangle, which comes only with a block.

721 ÷ 3 · always there
321 ÷ 7 · with a block
21the whole ring

The heptagon is the constant and the triangle is the sealed block. For one breath, when a block is found, both factors of twenty-one are present.

How it is drawn

Twenty-one segments around a figure that cannot be drawn.

Seven is a number that cannot be divided by hand with compass and straightedge, and neither can twenty-one. Yet there are beautiful approximations of it. Cypher was drawn by hand, with compass and ruler, working with these approximations.

Drawing · to come

The hand drawing of the heptagon and the 21 segments will appear here.

Photograph · wide

Cypher on a wall in a quiet room, the sparkle spreading across the wall. Landscape format.

For people who look for the order beneath the noise.

Cypher is made for people who understand that a market is made of people, and who would rather see its noise than only read about it. In a lobby or a private study, it shows at a glance whether the crowd is calm or shouting.

Cypher is a limited edition of 21 pieces, the sibling of Meridian, handcrafted by Joachim Tantau. Cutting-edge software and electronics sit inside a body made with the time-tested techniques of fine cabinetmaking. It is an original, creative work: one artist's interpretation of the crypto market, not a measurement of it, and there is no wrong way to read it.

The 21 segments are carved from limewood. Their surface is graphite, into which a fine metal pigment is burnished by hand. It gives the dark surface a cool metallic sheen, so the light catches every facet as it sparkles across them. Inside, each segment is driven on its own.

Every segment casts light in two directions: inward, into the heart of the sculpture, and outward, as rays onto the surrounding wall. Cypher changes the whole wall around it, not only itself.

It arrives in a wooden crate with installation instructions, the owner's booklet, which teaches how to read its geometry, and a certificate of authenticity in both digital and printed form.

Photograph · front

Cypher straight on, lit.

Photograph · the surface

The burnished graphite and aluminium surface, close.

Photograph · the workshop

Hands at work on a segment.

Details

The piece

Material
Limewood, graphite with burnished metal pigment
Diameter
97 cm
Light
Cool white LED with subtle colour, dimmable to the room
Connection
Wi-Fi, for live market and network data. Without it, a built-in program keeps the sculpture running
Edition
Limited edition of 21, numbered and signed
Creator
Joachim Tantau, Hamburg, Germany
Note
Cypher is an artwork. It does not predict prices or give financial advice, and its light is not a signal to buy or sell anything

Price and purchase

Price
₿ … at today's rate Price to confirm
EUR 14,800 incl. 19% VAT · EUR 12,437 without VAT
Fixed in euros, shown in bitcoin at today's rate. Payment in bitcoin is welcome. Buyers outside the EU pay no German VAT. Shipping and import duties are not included.
Includes
Wooden crate, installation instructions, owner's booklet, certificate of authenticity
Viewing
By appointment in the studio in Hamburg, arranged through an enquiry

Installation

Mounting
Two mounting plates, screwed to the wall
Power
230 V mains, with a supplied plug-in cable or hardwired into the wall
Manual
A detailed installation manual is included.

Service and warranty

Warranty
24 months on materials and electronics
Service
Can be sent back to the studio for repair at any time

The film

Watch the film · a few minutes

Cypher in the room, close and far, through calm hours and loud ones, and the moment a block is found. It plays only when pressed, with sound.

Enquire about Cypher.

To buy Cypher, to arrange a private viewing in the studio in Hamburg, or to ask about a piece for a specific room, write to the studio. Send a photo of your wall and Cypher will be shown on it before you decide. Replies come from Joachim Tantau personally.

Photograph · Cypher whole

A bright, crisp shot of Cypher whole on a pale wall.

The series

Light sculptures that reveal the order hidden in financial markets and the flow of assets.

24-fold

Meridian

Global Capital

The order of the world's markets, whole or scattered, through the full trading day.
21-fold · this piece

Cypher

Crypto Currents

Pure number behind the noise of the crowd, and a moment of completion with every block.

In preparation

The third sculpture

A warmer piece, on precious metals and other hard assets.