Artist's ₱1,501,551 ($25,000) Burning Bank Painting Echoes Bitcoin's Genesis
Alex Schaefer's Banks on Fire series, which began in 2009 during the financial collapse, critiques the same banking system that Satoshi Nakamoto protested by embedding a bailout headline in Bitcoin's Genesis Block. One of his Chase paintings sold for ₱1,513,564 ($25,200) to a German collector.
Key Takeaway
Schaefer's burning bank paintings and Bitcoin's Genesis Block both protested the 2008 bailout system.
Alex Schaefer set up his easel on a Van Nuys sidewalk in summer 2011 and painted the local Chase branch engulfed in flames.
LAPD questioned him about terrorist planning. His response became legendary: "Some might say the banks are the terrorists."
Schaefer trained at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, spent 8 years as a digital artist working on the original Spyro the Dragon trilogy, then returned to painting as the banking system imploded. One of his burning Chase paintings sold on eBay for ₱1,513,564 ($25,200) to a German collector.
In July 2012, Schaefer was arrested outside a downtown Chase branch for chalking the word "Crooks" next to the bank's logo. He spent 12 hours in jail on a misdemeanor vandalism charge. The bank he painted in Van Nuys had been a Washington Mutual, and before that a Home Savings and Loan—successive failures in the same building. Occupy LA camped on City Hall lawn blocks from his downtown studio while he worked.
Schaefer's critique runs parallel to Bitcoin's founding message. Satoshi Nakamoto embedded the January 3, 2009 Times headline "Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks" in the Genesis Block. That same financial system—bailed out with public money three years before Schaefer set up his easel—is what he set on fire in oil paint.
Schaefer now teaches fundamentals of painting, drawing, and composition at ArtCenter College of Design and appeared on a panel at Bitcoin 2026 on April 21.
This article was written based on reporting from Bitcoin Magazine.
