$11.7 Million Gold Cube Gets Replaced By Big Velveeta Box

When Fintan Quill went out for a jog, he wanted his path to take him past the large gold cube that had been set in Central Park on February 2. However, by the time he arrived, the cube had disappeared, and in its place stood a massive Velveeta box. Quill summarized his feelings to Patch as "Disappointed." The box was 1,400 times larger than your usual container of Velveeta, measuring 8 feet long. "LIQUID GOLD CUBE > SOLID GOLD CUBE," Velveeta tweeted in their characteristic use of all caps.

The gold cube was made by the German artist Niclas Castello, who might have wanted the publicity for his newly launched cryptocurrency called Castello Coin. "The cube can be seen as a sort of communiqué between an emerging 21st-century cultural ecosystem based on crypto and the ancient world where gold reigned supreme," Lisa Kandlhofer, a gallerist, told Artnet. It can also be seen as a 410-pound mound of gold which was worth $1,788 per ounce. It wasn't for sale and was only displayed in Central Park for that day. It doesn't appear that the massive Velveeta box is being used to highlight any sort of "cheese coin" cryptocurrency, even if the idea of a gargantuan box of not-exactly-cheese might come off as cryptic in a more general sense.

Of course, the cube of solid gold that was worth millions had an armed guard (per Artnet). So, when someone asked whether the Velveeta box was similarly guarded, the company's Twitter account screamed in the affirmative: "DOES A SUNSET HAVE A BODYGUARD? DOES A RAINBOW REQUIRE PROTECTION? BUT YES WE'RE REQUIRED TO HAVE SOMEONE THERE TO MONITOR BUT WE PROMISE HE'S COOL."

Evidently, the guard didn't do a good job. The box was allegedly stolen. The next day, Velveeta twwet-shrieked, "MISSING: 1 GIANT VELVEETA BOX. COLOR: GOLD. HEIGHT: 8 FT. TASTE: CHEESY HEAVEN. LAST SEEN: CENTRAL PARK, NYC. REWARD: YEAR SUPPLY OF SHELLS AND CHEESE. YES, CHEESENAPPERS ACTUALLY STOLE IT, PLEASE SHARE." The company followed the post with another barrage of capital letters that spelled out how this wasn't a marketing stunt, that someone actually stole the box. The heist was dubbed "OCEAN'S SHELLEVEN," which the company credited to the journalist turned meme-maker. Mac McCann. 

Considering that the entire thing was a joke based on a gold cube, it's hard not to suspect that this is the joke's continuation. Either way, the marketing stunt might have only had limited success with some folks. When Patch asked Fintan Quill whether he now desired Velveeta after seeing the box, he answered "Not particularly."