The Dispatch

WE'RE GOING TO COLUMBUS.

Dear subscribers,

Big news. Bitcoin for the Arts is going to Columbus. We're pivoting our September flagship to the Midwest Bitcoin Summit (September 23–24, Columbus, Ohio), joining the curatorial team behind Generations — the gallery and live programming inside the conference. PubKey DC, which we'd been planning for September 21, will be revisited at a later date.

Also in this issue: a new Substack piece — "The Money Is There" — went live this weekend, Episode 6 of Share Your Bitcoin Journey with UK singer-songwriter Joe Martin is on YouTube, the New York State 2026–27 budget enacted last week with NYSCA inside the Aid to Localities bill, and the Q4 grant cycle is approaching with submissions open now.

Plus the cleanest sponsor pitch we've ever put in front of a Bitcoin company: Sponsor a working artist for $2,500. More on that, too.

◆ The September Pivot

Bringing the culture in.

Bitcoin conferences have grown into serious institutions. What's been quietly missing alongside them is a curatorial counterpart — a serious cultural room, with serious working artists, treated as central to the programming rather than peripheral to it. Generations is that room, and Columbus is where we're going to help build it.

Curated by our advisor Kyle Knight — a producer with deep roots in the Bitcoin culture world — Generations is a 100×60 installation organized around four named zones, with anchor partnerships from the Human Rights Foundation, Bitcoin Trading Cards, and BSN. Bitcoin for the Arts is joining as a curatorial partner: featuring artists, programming live work, and bringing the BFTA mission directly into the conference floor.

What excites us most is the audience. The room at the Midwest Summit is a crowd of Bitcoiners who already understand sound money — and who are, by every definition, the future patron base for the next generation of working artists. Bringing real artists into that room, paid in Bitcoin, supported by infrastructure that lets the audience zap them in real time, is exactly the kind of moment our 501(c)(3) was built to create.

We are working closely with Kyle, the conference, and our advisory board through the month of June to lock in the details of BFTA's role. As pieces confirm, you'll be the first to hear.

◆ How To Sponsor

Sponsor a working artist. $2,500.

We're opening sponsorship for the Midwest Summit in two clean paths so any Bitcoin company, family office, or individual patron can pick the one that fits.

Path A  ·  Sponsor a Specific Artist

$2,500 per artist. The sponsor's name and the artist's name appear together on the program. The artist is paid directly. The sponsor knows exactly which working artist their dollars put on stage in Columbus. Tax-deductible to the full extent of the law — BFTA EIN 41-2642260.

Path B  ·  Sponsor BFTA's Curatorial Presence

Tiered sponsorship that supports the broader BFTA programming we're bringing to Columbus — across the artists, the experience, and the curatorial presence inside Generations.

• Presenting Sponsor  ·  $25,000
• Curatorial Sponsor  ·  $7,500
• Programming Sponsor  ·  $5,000
• Friend of BFTA at Midwest  ·  $1,000

Our Midwest fundraising target is $70,000–$80,000 — the level that lets us bring working artists into Columbus and pay them like the working professionals they are. Tailored sponsorships above the Presenting tier are also welcome — please reach out.

Are you, or do you know, a Bitcoin company that would want to be the named sponsor of a working artist this September? Reply to this email. We are taking introductions personally and prioritizing them over cold outreach.

◆ The Long Read  ·  New on Substack

"The Money Is There."

Our newest Substack piece went live this weekend. It's the long version of why we're approaching the Midwest Summit the way we are — and the structural argument for why the gap in arts funding is a bridge problem, not a capital problem.

Christie's sold $1.1 billion of art in one night last week. Bank of America's new report says working artists are the most fragile part of the market. Both things are true. Together they describe the gap a different kind of arts funding has to close.

The piece walks through the math: BFTA's annual budget to fund 50 working artists is a rounding error inside a single Christie's lot. The capital exists. The connective tissue between historical-collector wealth and working artists is what's missing — and that's the bridge BFTA was built to be.

It's also the long version of why every sponsor dollar this September is structural, not symbolic. If you read one piece from us this month, read this one.

◆ Share Your Bitcoin Journey — Episode 6

Joe Martin.

21st century troubadour  ·  Isle of Man  ·  Americana / country  ·  Value-for-value

Episode 6 of Share Your Bitcoin Journey is live. UK-based singer-songwriter Joe Martin — Isle of Man-based, Nashville-recorded, Bitcoin-paid — joined us for one of the most honest conversations we've had on the show about what it actually costs to make real art in the fiat era, and what Bitcoin and Nostr change for an independent musician trying to do it the right way.

The headlines from the conversation:

• $100 in the first week. Joe uploaded his first song on RSS and earned more in seven days than years of Spotify streaming had given him. The moment Bitcoin clicked.
• "I made my album without any AI." Joe's new record Alone in Valentine was made deliberately as a final pre-AI human document — a two-year process, a halfway-around-the-world Nashville session with Cal Campbell and Cornelius Webb, and most of his savings.
• AI slop and inflation are parallel debasements. One eats your money. The other eats your art. Joe makes the parallel as clearly as anyone we've heard.
• Sats over Spotify. Joe sells merch and music for sats on the Nostr marketplace — including limited vinyl that Grimey's Records in Nashville now stocks for U.S. fans.
• Advice for younger songwriters: Get on Nostr first. Then RSS. Then save the sats.

◆ From Albany

What's in New York's new budget for the arts.

On May 28, 2026, the New York State Legislature enacted the SFY 2026–27 budget — $268.5 billion in total spending, $14 billion above the prior year, and 57 days past the April 1 deadline — the latest budget the state has produced in 16 years. The package moves in ten component bills. The Aid to Localities bill (S9003D / A10003D) — the largest of the appropriations bills — is where the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) sits, alongside Medicaid disbursements, school aid, and the Office for the Aging.

The recent trajectory is the relevant context. NYSCA's FY 2026 enacted budget was $172 million total — $84M in Aid to Localities, $80M in Capital Projects, $7.98M in State Operations. That total represented a 1.7% reduction from FY 2025, but it landed $60.5 million above Governor Hochul's $111.5M executive proposal: the Legislature restored most of the executive's proposed arts cuts during negotiations. Federal NEA dollars passing through NYSCA's budget run roughly 1% of the agency total.

For FY 2027, the same dynamic is the question worth watching. On March 25, arts advocates rallied in the Senate gallery to call for a $270 million NYSCA appropriation — a level that, if reached, would represent the largest year-over-year increase in recent state history. The final NYSCA line will be published in the Division of the Budget's enacted appropriation tables in the coming days. The pattern from last year — the Legislature pushing arts funding well above the executive's proposal — is the right benchmark to watch this year's number against.

◆ Q4 Grant Cycle

Submissions are open. Reviews start Q3.

BFTA's grant program is open. We're accepting submissions now, beginning formal review in Q3, and announcing awarded grants in Q4 — paid directly to the artist's wallet in Bitcoin, settled in hours, with no possibility of revocation by any board, agency, or administration.

Grants are $500 to $2,000 in Bitcoin. Open to applicants worldwide, with the requirement that the funded project produce a public benefit within the United States. The artist does not need to be a U.S. resident or citizen. The work may have been created anywhere.

Where to Start

Until next time —

Bitcoin for the Arts

Bitcoin for the Arts  ·  501(c)(3)

Sound money for timeless creators. Empowering artists with Bitcoin micro-grants & workshops.

bitcoinforthearts.org

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