The Dispatch

RESEARCH LIVE. PORTLAND NOW. AND THE NUMBERS.

Dear subscribers,

Three things in this one. Our research portal launched — three full reports, a methodology page, and a glossary, all live at bitcoinforthearts.org/research. Beth is in Portland at Bitcoin Is For Everyone this weekend, representing BFTA on the ground. And we want to be straight with you about where BFTA actually stands heading into our September benefit — the math, the gap, and what we need from this community.

Plus a new artist confirmed for September, podcast episodes in production, and a new Substack piece.

◆ The Receipts

The research portal is live.

Two weeks ago we told you we were building this. This week it's live. Three full reports, a methodology page, and a glossary — all at bitcoinforthearts.org/research.

We built this because credible nonprofits publish research, and because the arts funding story is too important to leave to think-pieces. If you've been wondering whether BFTA is a serious organization or a Bitcoin novelty — these documents are the evidence.

Three Reports Now Available

The State of Arts Funding 2026

Our flagship annual. Federal, state, local, and private funding mapped. The collapse timeline. Who gets hurt. Where the market is responding. Why non-state-dependent funding is no longer optional. Updated every year going forward.

The ARPA Cliff

The structural funding gap left by the expiration of American Rescue Plan arts dollars. State-by-state data. The reason the field is exposed right now.

Sound Money for the Arts

Why fiat debasement hits working artists harder than any other profession, and why a Bitcoin endowment solves a structural problem traditional endowments can't. The intellectually distinctive piece nobody else is writing with rigor.

Each report is footnoted, sourced from primary government data, and downloadable as a PDF. Our methodology page describes exactly how we collect and verify everything, and the glossary demystifies any term that non-specialists might trip on.

If you've ever forwarded a BFTA email to a friend and wished you had something more substantive to send than a donation link — these are the documents to share. Quote them, cite them, send them to your local arts council. That's what they're for.

◆ Portland — This Weekend

Beth's on the ground.

Bitcoin Is For Everyone is happening this weekend — May 22–23 in Portland. BFTA is a sponsor, and our featured artist Beth Alta Fletcher (Lady Nakamoto) is on the ground both days — Friday at the Kennedy School for the art display and films, Saturday at Revolution Hall running the BFTA booth. If you're going, find her. She'll have BFTA materials and her own work on display.

Last Call: 21% Off Code BITCOINFORTHEARTS still works — but only through this weekend. Tickets at bitcoinisforeveryone.com/tickets.

Follow us on Nostr at @bitcoinforthearts for live updates from the floor. Full recap in next week's issue.

◆ An Honest Update

Where we actually stand.

We're going to be straight with you, because that's the kind of organization we want to be. Here's where BFTA is, and what we need to make 2026 the year we said it would be.

The goal: fund 50 working artists with Bitcoin grants of $500–$2,000 each by December 31, 2026. That's not a vanity number. It's the smallest scale at which BFTA proves the model — that a Bitcoin-funded 501(c)(3) can deliver grants reliably, transparently, and at a cadence that matters.

The math, applied through our 55/30/10/5 allocation:

We're nowhere near these numbers yet. Donations have been steady but small — meaningful gifts from a community that gets it, but not at the scale we need to fund 50 artists this year. That's the honest picture.

Here's the part most nonprofits don't say out loud: we are not chasing traditional foundation grants this year. Most arts foundations require a five-year operating history before they'll write us a check, and we don't qualify yet. That math is fine — it just means the funding has to come from the community that built Bitcoin in the first place.

Specifically: you.

This community funded Bitcoin's first decade. It funded the early podcasts, the conferences, the meetups, the protocol developers, the educational nonprofits, the open-source tooling. None of that came from the Ford Foundation. It came from people who saw something institutional capital couldn't or wouldn't see, and put their own sats behind it. BFTA is the same kind of bet.

Three Specific Things You Can Do This Week

1. Donate at any amount. $21 to $25,000 — every contribution moves the number. A $1,000 donation literally funds one artist for a year. bitcoinforthearts.org/donate.

2. Forward this email to one person. One. Someone in your network who funds arts work, or who's been quietly looking for a Bitcoin-aligned nonprofit to support. We grow this thing the same way Bitcoin grew — peer to peer.

3. Introduce us to a sponsor, artist, or board prospect. Reply to this email with a name and a sentence. Warm intros from this community are worth more than any cold outreach we could do. If you've got one, send it.

◆ New on the September Roster

Meet Shipwreck Sean.

Hand-drawn Bitcoin art  ·  Denton, Maryland  ·  shipwrecksean.com

Tim Smigelski put us on to Sean — a tattoo artist of fifteen years who owns his own shop in Denton, Maryland, fell into Bitcoin in 2021, and got fully orange-pilled in 2023. Now he wants to move his professional center of gravity into the Bitcoin community.

"I live on a Bitcoin standard and wouldn't change it for the world. I want to take my talents and produce something meaningful in the Bitcoin community."

For our September benefit, Sean is creating three original physical pieces: two for sale with his Lightning address attached (he keeps 100% of any sats from those sales), and one donated to BFTA for a raffle at the event — proceeds 100% to our artist grant fund. That's the kind of generosity the model is built on.

Visit his work at shipwrecksean.com. We'll feature a fuller story on his career arc — and pictures of the pieces — in a future issue.

◆ Coming Up on the Podcast

Share Your Bitcoin Journey, season continues.

In Post-Production

Sara Jade  ·  Cinematic pop-rock, value-for-value pioneer

The 2026 San Diego Music Award winner for Best Pop Song. Opened for Jason Mraz in April. 30,000-plus followers on Nostr. One of the few women operating at her career level inside the Bitcoin music ecosystem, and the founder of Songwriter Sisters. We talked about the Spotify "Never Knew" phantom-streaming takedown, what value-for-value music actually means day to day, and why she leaned all the way into Nostr instead of treating it as a side experiment. Episode dropping soon.

Anik Malcolm  ·  The Whole Entire Universe

The conceptual painter we featured in Issue #6 from the Vegas conference. Nine hundred hours of oil paint, a 276-by-276-by-276 cube of beads, exactly 21 million when you do the math. We talked about the renaissance he's making outside the museum circuit, his wife Una's role as creative co-author of the central work, and what fatherhood does to an artist working on a hard-money subject. Episode dropping soon.

Both episodes air on our YouTube channel — subscribe so you don't miss them.

◆ New from the Substack

Art is health infrastructure.

A new piece on Substack this week: the argument that the arts are not entertainment or luxury — they are public health infrastructure, and the case for that has only grown stronger since 2020. Read it on Substack and forward it to anyone who's still treating arts funding as an optional line item.

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

Find us on Nostr →