The Netherlands-based bit4coin.net launched a contest for photographers and graphic artists to create new graphic representation of bitcoin digital currency. Images can be submitted until 15 October 2015.

Anyone can participate in the Bitcoin Photo Contest sponsored by bit4coin.net by creating bitcoin related photos or artwork and uploading the images to the site. The number of images per participant is unlimited. The only condition is to avoid photos “depicting violence, pornography, or illegal activities” or containing advertisement of a company. The submitted images will be published on the site and everyone will be given opportunity to vote for them with ‘likes’.

There will be another way to vote for an image. There will be a BTC address associated with every image and a visitor of the site can choose to tip an artist with bitcoins. The popularity of each image will be therefore easy to see. Tips will be collected by bit4coin.net and transferred to the artists immediately after the contest is closed, say the organisers. They promise to transfer the money in full without charging any fees.

Once the contest is closed, fifty top-ranking photos from each section (‘likes’ and BTC tips) will be analysed by a panel of experts from bitcoin media outlets partnering with bi4coin.net. Votes by the panel members will also be made public, say the organisers. Three winners will be selected, with first prize is €1,000 in bitcoin, the second is €500 and the third is €250. 

According to the company’s statement, the submitted images will be used by bit4coin.net only in connection with the contest with the artists retaining all the rights to their images. The idea is to update the available bitcoin image pool since, according to the organisers, “bitcoin lacks photos” and “most main-stream articles reuse the same images of physical coins”. The company declares it has “no financial interest, except for maybe a bit of visibility in the community”.

Alexey Tereshchenko