THE MOST IMPORTANT DOCUMENTARY ON BITCOIN MINING EVER MADE.

Dear sovereign renaissance,

Four updates this week. Episode 11 of Share Your Bitcoin Journey just dropped with Alana Mediavilla, the Puerto Rican filmmaker behind Dirty Coin and founder of Campo Libre. Our dedicated Midwest volunteer page is live, and we are calling for volunteers, sponsors, and Columbus homeschool families all at once. Two arts funding beats from the past week worth watching. And the BFTA Artist Directory continues to grow.

◆ Share Your Bitcoin Journey, Episode 11

Alana Mediavilla.

Puerto Rican filmmaker · Director of Dirty Coin · Founder of Campo Libre · First English-language film to win Best National Documentary in Puerto Rico

Episode 11 of Share Your Bitcoin Journey is live. Alana Mediavilla, the Puerto Rican filmmaker behind Dirty Coin, joins us for our longest and most substantive conversation to date. Two hours on Silicon Valley, sovereignty, mining, and independent cinema on a Bitcoin standard.

The headlines:

From Google Cloud to independent cinema. Ten years inside Big Tech producing for Google, Apple, PayPal, Volkswagen, and Volvo. Walked away in 2020, moved her family home to Puerto Rico, and built her own production company, Campo Libre, in San Juan.
Three Bitcoin at $200, and a lesson she never forgot. Bought BTC in 2015. Found out at a Starbucks, on the day Bitcoin hit $10,000, that her husband had already sold all three at $600. Her first lesson in not your keys, not your coins.
A documentary financed in Bitcoin. One BTC donation received at roughly $40,000 became $70,000 of production spend before the film was even finished. That is the math fiat never gives you.
What Malawi taught her that Texas could not. Bitcoin mining as the tool that unlocks stranded renewable energy in landlocked countries, and lets rural grids get built out without predatory debt.
500 screenings in 200 cities. Community-hosted distribution through Kinema, aimed at meetup leaders instead of the general public. Won Best National Documentary in Puerto Rico as the first English-language film ever to do so.

Watch Episode 11 →

Watch or host Dirty Coin. The film is available on Kinema, IndeeHub, Geyser, and Relay, with more streamers on the way. Watch or host a community screening at Kinema.

◆ Midwest Bitcoin Summit

Three ways to be part of it.

Bitcoin Arts Park is ten weeks away. September 23 and 24, 2026 in Columbus. Three specific asks this week, all live:

Volunteer with us. Our dedicated Midwest volunteer page is now live. We are looking for up to five great humans to help us build Bitcoin Arts Park: booth support, stage and audio, videography and documentation, or wherever needed. Free conference admission for the days you volunteer, BFTA event gear, meals during shifts, on-camera credit in the produced recap, and a written reference letter available on request. Sign up at bitcoinforthearts.org/midwest/volunteer.

Sponsor a piece of it. The eight-tier public sponsorship structure remains open, from a Featured Artist Stipend at $500 to Presenting Sponsor at $25,000, with in-kind contributions welcome across booth construction, video and photo production, backline gear, and hospitality. Our Midwest fundraising target is $80,000 or more. Everything we raise funds Bitcoin Arts Park to production standards and pays the working artists who show up. Reply to this email or visit bitcoinforthearts.org/midwest.

Bring homeschool kids for a book reading. We are working with Columbus-area homeschool groups to organize a live reading of Lindey Magee's Seuss-style children's book Bitcoin: A Treasure to HODL inside Bitcoin Arts Park during the summit. Every child who attends gets a signed hardcover, at no cost to your family. If you lead a homeschool co-op in the Columbus area, or know a family who does, reply to this email and we will make it happen.

Volunteer with BFTA →

◆ The Week in Arts Funding

Two beats worth watching.

The NEA July 2026 grant cycle is open. The National Endowment for the Arts opened its second major funding round of the year. Full applications are due Tuesday, July 21. That is eight days from today. For any artist in our audience working through a 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor, or any small arts organization ready to apply directly, this is the most immediate public dollar available in the country right now. Read the guidelines at arts.gov/grants.

Christie's hosts its Art+Tech Summit this Thursday. On July 16 at Rockefeller Center, Christie's convenes Wall Street, technology, and the traditional art market for its 2026 Art+Tech Summit. The program looks at how emerging technology, including blockchain and digital assets, is reshaping collecting and value in the art world. The auction house world is beginning to notice at scale what Bitcoin For The Arts has been saying since day one: technology is not a threat to art, it is the new patronage rail. That the conversation is happening at Christie's and not at BFTA is fine by us. We would rather build the thing than debate it.

Two beats, one lesson. The old rails are still writing the checks, and the new rails are starting to make it into the same rooms.

NEA Grant Guidelines →

◆ BFTA Artist Directory

Working artists, this is your list.

The BFTA Artist Directory continues to grow. It is the running database of working artists across every discipline who support the BFTA mission and want the organization's resources, updates, and opportunities routed to them directly. Signup takes about three minutes. It is free.

If you are a working artist, add your name. The more of us on the list, the more the movement looks like what it actually is.

Join the Artist Directory →

The Throughline This Week

The next decade of cinema belongs to the artists who control their own rails.

Alana said that in Episode 11. It is not a slogan. It is a description of what is already happening. Dirty Coin screened in 200 cities without a studio. A Treasure to HODL went national through Ingram without a publisher. Ainsley plays for a room that boosts her in real time. Benjamin walked away from The Royal Ballet with his choreography and his church treasury on a Bitcoin standard.

Bitcoin For The Arts is building the room where they meet. The rails run right through it.

Until next time.

Bitcoin for the Arts

Where to Start

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