By now there are so many Jacob & Co. Astronomia Solar Bitcoin that it’s unclear whether more of them will fit into the universe to which they pay tribute. There’s the Astronomia Sky, the Astronomia Art, the Astronomia Tourbillon, the Astronomia Casino, the Astronomia Tourbillon Casino Baguette … You get the idea. These are large watches with a lot of opulence and technology fighting for space under their high-domed crystals. It’s the rare collector who appreciates things like a flying tourbillon paired with a 288-facet orange citrine, and it’s the even rarer one who can also afford it. To this large family, in time for Geneva Watch Days, comes the Astronomia Solar Bitcoin, upon which the heavenly bodies of our solar system share space with a recent addition to life on earth: an extra-large rotating bitcoin symbol. The watch has a base plate shaped like a microchip, because Bitcoin’s mom and dad are both computers, and its movement is surrounded by an engraving reading “peer to peer” and “blockchain” and “decentralized digital currency,” which are the “Drive Carefully, Me” of the cryptocurrency generation.
You’d have to have a set of ₿rass ₿alls to wear this watch. For those who like bling and horological complications, there is no doubt that the Astronomia is a grail (or beyond the grail) piece, but the Astronomia Solar Bitcoin seems about six months too late. Then again, there are only 25 of them, so the question is: Are there 25 serious hodlers out there with portfolios diversified enough to afford one? Probably so. And there is a zero percent chance that anyone who buys this watch is not thinking obsessively about it at Burning Man right now under the influence of some drug we have all yet to hear of.
Jacob & Co. Astronomia Solar Bitcoin has built a horological monument to crypto in the form of the 25-piece limited edition Astronomia Solar Bitcoin.
Basing the watch around Jacob & Co.’s most diminutive Astronomia movement, the JCAM19, allows for a comparatively slight 44mm case diameter, aided by the shrinking effect of a full black DLC coating of its titanium frame.
The watch is described as a symbolic tribute to “the world of cryptocurrencies and to its pioneering and leading example, Bitcoin.” Rich in the symbology of the Web 3.0 field, the watch features a rotating Bitcoin currency symbol and a miniature black rocketship, with flaming reactor, apparently destined ‘to the moon,’ which, in this case, is represented by 1Ct spherical Jacob cut diamond. A spherical yellow sapphire stands in for the sun which sits opposite a flying tourbillon, while the geocentric layout places a black and gold Earth at the centre of the dial.
The Jacob & Co. Astronomia Solar Bitcoin elements are all mounted on a three-armed platform that completes one rotation around the dial in 10 minutes, against a rotating “microchip-designed mainplate” backdrop that rotates in the opposite direction once every 11 minutes.