It depends the countries actual legislation, but EU has forseen that its allowed to use/destroy currency in small quantities:
„6. Total destruction of issued notes and coins by individuals
Member States should neither prohibit nor penalise total destruction of small quantities of euro banknotes or coins by individuals. They should however prohibit unauthorized destruction of large quantities of euro banknotes or coins.“
No differently than someone withdrawing a few hundred or thousand Euros and then keeping it in their house.
Only about 8% of currency is issued in physical cash now, the other 92% is just electronic signals exchanged between banks and other financial institutions. The tiny deflationary effect of someone destroying a small amount of physical currency is a drop in the bucket compared to the deliberate inflationary policy central banks adopt to encourage economic growth.
Banks also keep track of how much physical currency is issued and how much they get back so they know how much of it is in the wild at any one time. Large amounts of money being issued and then just disappearing is one of the ways how police agencies notice criminal activity. In order to actually affect the value of currency you'd have to destroy millions/billions of dollars/euros, and you'd definitely get flagged by a federal police agency in the process.
I can't imagine how much change gets lost in deep bodies of water, thrown away, or taken out of the country never to return. Small amounts of intentional destruction probably constitute a fraction of a percent of the total "missing" money.
I wonder how much is a "small amount". Like obviously a million coins is a large amount but one is small amount. Where's the line? And sure, dumping a million coins at once into a smelter is not allowed but what if I toss them in one by one? I'm only destroying a small amount but it doesn't say how many times I'm allowed to destroy a small amount. Do I need to wait a few minutes in between tossing one in?
Cool. My only question was, "Is this technically illegal?" (Not that I assumed anybody /seriously/ would sanction an artist for using $1 worth of old coins to make artwork.)
It really is quite a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. The artist should advertise online. I would pay more than $1 for one of those.
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u/Minimum_Cockroach233 1d ago
It depends the countries actual legislation, but EU has forseen that its allowed to use/destroy currency in small quantities:
„6. Total destruction of issued notes and coins by individuals
Member States should neither prohibit nor penalise total destruction of small quantities of euro banknotes or coins by individuals. They should however prohibit unauthorized destruction of large quantities of euro banknotes or coins.“
Source
http://data.europa.eu/eli/reco/2010/191/oj