Crypto Bros. builds giant Elon Musk goat statue in Arizona

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An Elon Musk themed cryptocurrency has been launched. Not surprisingly, in this world of shitcoins with names like Elonomics and Dogelon Mars, but this one is different. To promote Elon Goat Token, its creators are building a giant half-Elon Musk, half-goat statue that they plan to drive across the country before taking it to Tesla and demanding Musk take ownership of the monument.

Elon Goat Token has already launched, and those who buy it right now pay a small tax on each transaction used in the construction of the statue. And it’s not just any statue. The shot shows Musk’s head on a goat’s body straddling a rocket. There are ascending lines under the rocket pointing not to the moon, but to Mars.

“Elon GOAT Token ($ EGT) is building a biblical-sized monument on the back of a semi-trailer dedicated to the godfather of crypto, Elon Musk,” the token website said.

But why a statue? “At every crucial moment in human history, a magnum opus, or masterpiece, has captured the essence of that period. Think of the great pyramids of Giza. The statue of David. Guernica by Picasso. The world is now on the brink of the greatest wealth transfer in its history, ”the Token white paper explained. “What better way to enshrine the start of this flamboyant new era, than to do so by celebrating the degenerates involved, alongside the most innovative man of the 21st century, Elon Musk?”

You would be forgiven for bundling Elon Goat Token with one of the many scams, scams, and frauds that litter the cryptocurrency landscape. Elon Goat Token is, after all, ridiculous, and its developers are anonymous on the project’s website (fairly common in crypto, but also a potential red flag). However, Elon Goat Token has real names and faces behind him.

One of the men behind this crazy project is Ashley Sansalone, an American construction and marketing expert. He said he was involved with several other crypto companies. “This one was just more of a passion project,” Sansalone told Motherboard over the phone.

Why Musk? Because he’s a crypto legend, according to Sansalone. “Elon Musk is basically moving markets and crypto,” he said. “He’s always been a visionary and he’s always been a big supporter of the crypto community… so it’s a big deal to get his attention. And every time Elon tweets about anything crypto-related, it moves the markets. “

“We thought there should be a monument about it,” he said. According to Sansalone, the idea to build a giant statue of Musk came to him during a late-night conversation with someone he was consulting for. “It was around 3:30 in the morning,” he said, and the guy he was on the phone with wanted to do an NFT series with Musk as a goat.

“I’m not a fan of fluff,” Sansalone said. “I don’t want to just blow 10,000 pieces of NFT that don’t make sense to me, personally. You’re just promoting bullshit. I said, ‘Let’s build a huge goat. We’ll take one of the NFTs and We will do it.

Sansalone reached out to California designer Danny Wang to get a feel for the costs and logistics. He said Wang told him that developing the statute in California would be very painful because of the regulations. So we just said, ‘Well why don’t we just build it on a trailer inside and we don’t have to worry about building permits and land use and that sort of thing. of things, “Sansalone said.” And I said, “Great. Well, if we do that, we might as well take it to Tesla and give it to him, can’t we?”

And so was born the project to build a giant statue of Elon Musk as a goat riding a rocket built on the back of a trailer in Arizona with the idea of ​​driving it across the United States before to drop it off for Musk in Texas.

Sansalone admitted that it all sounded like a joke, but said he had already paid Wang a fee of $ 20,000 to start working. Wang posted about the project on his Instagram, as did metal artist Kevin Stone, who works on the head.

“Yeah, it’s happening, I just went to Arizona to check out the trailer and coordinated with the crew to start the build,” Wang told Motherboard in an email. “Elongoat token approached me to do the design and the trailer is what we came up with. It is filled with various items relating to Elon Musk’s businesses. The Goat sits on a Space X rocket propelling the Earth and Moon to Mars like Elon’s vision. The goat is also surrounded by lightning bolts to symbolize solar electricity and Tesla’s electric cars. Finally, the trailer is also towed by a Tesla Semi and the plan is to buy one so that we can tow the trailer.

Wang said he was a big supporter of Musk. “I bought a Tesla 9 years ago and own several Tesla cars,” he said. “I believe he does great things to advance technology and I love his sense of humor.”

Stone told Motherboard that he had already started working. “Yes, I’m about to create the face on Elon,” he told Motherboard in an email. “I have a business in Calgary Alberta, Canada. Porterfield Studios Ltd run by Cory Porterfield who is 5 axis machining a 6 foot Elon bust from the styrofoam sculpture.

The polystyrene head is expected to arrive next week. “I’m going to use the foam head to create an all aluminum head using the foam as a template,” Stone said. “Once I’m done, it will be shipped to Arizona where the team of makers that creates the rest of the sculpture for Danny Wang and Elongoat.io. I should be done with my share in a few months.

Stone said he was a crypto newbie but a huge Musk fan. “I think Elon is an amazing person way ahead of most of us in terms of thinking and inspiring people to create and think outside the box,” he said. “He is without a doubt the Nikola Tesla of our modern age.”

According to Sansalone, the statue will be completed in less than four months and will cost around $ 500,000. Once he’s done, the plan is to drive him across the country and show him off before driving him to Musk, wherever he is at the time. Sansalone said he assumed he would be in Austin, Texas.

Sansalone said he had not had any contact with Musk. “Elon certainly knows that,” he said, explaining that he believed Musk frequented message boards and Telegram channels where word of the statue spread. “So we’re just trying to impress her and see what happens as it all unfolds. “

He said people will soon be able to watch the statue’s construction in real time as it is assembled in Arizona. Of course, anything can happen, especially in the wild world of cryptocurrency where big projects routinely rush towards something that looks like the real thing and then crumbles just as quickly. But, at the same time, there might one day be a giant statue of a goat-Elon riding a rocket and heading for Tesla’s headquarters.

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