The Dispatch

BITCOIN PRODUCED THIS FILM. WE HELPED.

Dear sovereign renaissance,

Five updates this week. BFTA is now a founding sponsor of The Six Billion Dollar Man, the Eugene Jarecki documentary that won Cannes and a Golden Globe. Episode 9 of Share Your Bitcoin Journey is live with Alaskan digital artist Lady Nakamoto. The Royal Ballet cut 64 roles while Manhattan's Borough President emptied a $50 million budget into NYC arts, two reactions to one failing currency. The Camp Nakamoto community paid Ainsley nearly 7 million sats live. And our footprint at the Midwest Bitcoin Summit has changed. We are being honest with you about how.

◆ BFTA Sponsorship

BFTA is a founding sponsor of The Six Billion Dollar Man.

Bitcoin for the Arts has officially become a founding Bitcoin Producer of The Six Billion Dollar Man, the new Eugene Jarecki documentary on Julian Assange. BFTA's name will appear in the film's credits, alongside the other Bitcoin Producers who answered the call.

The film is the latest from Academy Award nominated director Eugene Jarecki (Why We Fight, The House I Live In, The King). It traces Julian Assange's pursuit of journalism, the secrets he revealed, and the price he paid, and it asks what truth is worth in an age of mass surveillance. The film won the L'Œil d'Or Prix du Documentaire at Cannes 2025 and the Golden Globe for Best Documentary.

Here is the part that lives at the center of why we said yes. When the financial gatekeepers blocked the film, Jack Dorsey suggested the team take it directly to the Bitcoin community. For 0.01 BTC, you become a Bitcoin Producer and join the premiere. No studio. No streamer. No matching fund. No quarterly statement. Sound money, peer to peer, in service of a story that traditional finance refused to support.

That is the BFTA thesis on a screen.

We exist to give artists, filmmakers, musicians, and writers a path around the gatekeepers who decide which stories get told and which do not. We exist to bring the principles of self-custody, sovereignty, and peer-to-peer value exchange into the cultural conversation. When a Golden Globe winning documentary has to bypass the entire fiat financial system to reach an audience, that is not a niche story. That is the future of independent film. And BFTA is going to be on the record as having helped make it possible.

The film premiered online for the Bitcoin community on June 27, 2026. If you have not seen it yet, you can still join as a Bitcoin Producer and watch the premiere.

◆ Share Your Bitcoin Journey, Episode 9

Lady Nakamoto.

Alaskan digital artist  ·  Former X Games and World Cup snowboarder  ·  Rolf Institute graduate  ·  Her first ever interview

Episode 9 of Share Your Bitcoin Journey is live. Lady Nakamoto, the Alaskan digital artist behind Along the Watchtower, The Patriot, and The Greatest War, joins us for the very first interview she has ever done.

The headlines:

• From the X Games to Bitcoin art. A former X Games and World Cup snowboarder who grew up on the Alyeska ski mountain in Girdwood, Alaska.
• The Rolf Institute and the holistic frame. Trained in structural integration in 2007. Her artistic and Bitcoin worldview are built on the same philosophy of wholeness.
• 2010 was her first encounter with Bitcoin. Born out of an anti-establishment instinct during the bailouts and Occupy Wall Street.
• "Peer to peer is the most overlooked line in the white paper." Her clearest read on why the Bitcoin space keeps missing what matters most.
• Her first peer-to-peer sale at Bitcoin Is For Everyone in Portland, representing BFTA on the floor.

◆ The Other Side of the Same Week

One failing currency. Two reactions.

While Bitcoin was producing a Golden Globe winner, the legacy arts world spent the same week pulling in two opposite directions to absorb the same shock.

In London: the Royal Ballet cut 64 roles.

Nine compulsory redundancies, more than 4,000 front-of-house shifts disappearing, ushers and box office workers being asked to do more with less. The Royal Ballet is not alone. The Royal Shakespeare Company, the Young Vic, and ATG Entertainment have all made similar moves. We wrote about it this week.

In New York: a $50 million bandage.

On the same week the Royal Ballet announced its cuts, Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal announced he is committing his entire $50 million annual discretionary budget to NYC arts. He named it the Manhattan Multiplier. The funding will be split across 28 schools and 55 cultural institutions, including the Met Opera, Juilliard, the Schomburg Center, the American Museum of Natural History, El Museo del Barrio, Ballet Hispánico, and the Museum of Chinese in America.

The trigger he named publicly: the federal government's threats to arts funding. Hundreds of NEA grants were cancelled in 2025, with roughly $5 million in lost federal funding reported across the NYC metro area. The NYC Department of Cultural Affairs is facing an $84 million decline from FY2026 to FY2027. The borough president has already raised $12 million in private matching donations on top of the $50 million.

Run the math. Across 83 institutions, the average allocation is roughly $600,000. The Met Opera, with an annual budget around $300 million, gets $500,000 to update its scenery pulley system. Juilliard, with a $1 billion endowment, gets $257,000. This is not transformation. This is triage in a currency being printed faster than the institutions can keep up.

The same disease. Two opposite reactions. The same currency.

Bitcoin for the Arts is not waiting for borough presidents to step in. We are not lobbying for a bigger Manhattan Multiplier. We are not asking the Royal Ballet to put its endowment into Bitcoin tomorrow. We are building the rail underneath.

One musician at a time. One filmmaker at a time. One painter, one dancer, one poet, one playwright at a time. A federation of artists who have made the decision to stop waiting for the institutions to save them, and who have started saving themselves on a Bitcoin standard.

◆ Camp Nakamoto Postscript

The ethos we are building toward.

The 2026 Camp Nakamoto community on Sandy Island. This is the energy we want carried into Columbus.

We covered Camp Nakamoto last week as the place Ainsley Costello carried our flag into the woods. This week, with the dust settled and the receipts in, we want to highlight what actually happened on that island and why it matters to the BFTA mission.

The Camp Nakamoto community paid Ainsley nearly 7 million sats live, on the spot, with no middlemen. Roughly $4,500 at the Bitcoin price, sent peer to peer in the time it takes to scan a QR code. No agent. No venue cut. No ticketing platform. The audience decided the music was worth something and paid for it directly.

In Ainsley's own words:

The reason we want to recognize what happened on that island is that the people who showed up represent the ethos Bitcoin for the Arts is building toward. Generous. Human. Curious. Willing to support an artist instantly when the work moves them.

To the attendees, to the MassAdoption community, and to everyone who turned up for Ainsley on that island: thank you. If you were at Camp Nakamoto, we are inviting you to bring that same energy to Columbus. The Midwest Bitcoin Summit is two months away. We are building the room.

◆ Midwest Summit Update

Plans have changed. The mission has not.

We have an update on our Midwest Bitcoin Summit footprint. The original conversation had Bitcoin for the Arts co-curating the visual art gallery. As planning progressed, the direction took a different shape than we initially anticipated, and we have arrived at a path forward we are genuinely excited about.

BFTA will not be co-curating the visual art gallery at the Midwest Bitcoin Summit. The gallery will go forward under the leadership of curator Kyle Knight, focused on visual art. We support that direction and we wish the gallery every success.

Here is what we are building.

The Midwest Summit leadership team has given Bitcoin for the Arts our own dedicated footprint on the Expo Hall floor. A 30-foot space, designed and programmed by BFTA, where we will build a cultural experience end to end on our own terms. Film screenings of independent Bitcoin-aligned films. Visual art from BFTA-supported artists. A peer-to-peer Lightning silent auction. A Lightning wallet demo. A merchandise and donation station. And, on the Secondary Stage just steps away, two days of live lunch-hour performances by Ainsley Costello and other working artists on a Bitcoin standard.

This is what Bitcoin for the Arts was always meant to be at a Bitcoin conference. We own the cultural footprint. We program the experience. We pay the artists. We control the narrative end to end.

It is also why we are reaching out now, with full transparency. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit startup with limited resources, and we need help to build this room properly. We are calling for cash sponsorships, in-kind donations, and supporter momentum to bring this footprint to life in Columbus on September 23 and 24.

What we are looking for, specifically:

• Cash sponsorships from $500 to $25,000, with named placements (BFTA Booth Sponsor, Secondary Stage Performance Sponsor, Silent Auction Sponsor, Film Screening Sponsor), and full tax deductibility.
• In-kind donations: A/V equipment, booth furniture and lounge seating, projection or large-screen displays, gallery lighting, silent disco headphone packages, and video production support.
• Volunteer and artist participation: working artists who plan to be in Columbus and want to be part of the room.
• Spread the word: forward this issue to one person you know who supports the arts on a Bitcoin standard.

Until next time.

Bitcoin for the Arts

Where to Start

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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