The Dispatch

VEGAS, FOUR ARTISTS, AND ADAM BACK

Dear subscribers,

We're back from Bitcoin 2026 in Las Vegas, and the real value we brought home wasn't a sponsorship deck or a podcast slot — it was four working artists who get exactly what BFTA is trying to build, and a small but meaningful moment with one of the people who made Bitcoin possible in the first place.

Plus: news on our September event, and where we'll be in May.

◆ A Moment Worth Marking

Adam Back signed our shirt.

For anyone who hasn't been deep in the Bitcoin rabbit hole — Adam Back is the cryptographer whose work on Hashcash is referenced directly in the original Bitcoin whitepaper. He's been named in The New York Times in connection with the ongoing question of who Satoshi Nakamoto really is. He's about as close to the architecture of this thing as anyone alive.

Dion Wilson with Adam Back, who took the time to sign a Bitcoin for the Arts shirt at Bitcoin 2026.

Adam was warm to BFTA's mission. He didn't have to take that minute. He did. Small moment, but a real one — the kind of signal that tells us we're building something the people who care most about Bitcoin's integrity want to exist.

◆ Artists Who Get It

Three artists from the conference floor.

These are the kind of artists BFTA was built to back: working creators, low time preference, making things that will outlast the cycle. We met them in Las Vegas. Each one is a name worth knowing.

Painter / Live Performance

Mear One

Mear One painted live across three days at the conference. The piece was completed in real time, in front of the crowd.

Mear is a metaphysical surrealist whose canvases pull from cultural memory, mythology, and the politics of the present. He worked on a single painting through the entire conference — a live, public act of making — and finished it in front of an audience. The exact kind of patient, embodied artistry BFTA exists to back.

Painter / Symbolist

Anik Malcolm

Anik Malcolm with one of his pieces, "The Whole Entire Universe."

Anik makes work that reads like the next renaissance, full stop. Quality you can feel in person. He understands the BFTA ethos at the gut level — that timeless craft made on sound money is a different kind of object than what fiat economies produce. He's committed to coming on the BFTA podcast, and we're staying close.

Hand-Generated Digital Art

Amy Digi

Amy Digi with her piece "Typed Revolution" at Bitcoin 2026.

Amy is a hand-generated digital artist working at the intersection of culture and code. We met her on the conference floor and want her on BFTA's radar going forward — we'll feature her work and process in a future issue. For now, we wanted you to meet her.

◆ Where We'll Be Next

Portland — Beth Alta Fletcher

Bitcoin Is For Everyone  ·  May 22–23, 2026  ·  Portland, OR

"The Greatest War" by Beth Alta Fletcher — one of three pieces she'll bring to Portland.

BFTA will be on the ground at Bitcoin Is For Everyone in Portland, represented by featured artist Beth Alta Fletcher — who creates under the name Lady Nakamoto. Beth will be doing BFTA outreach, distributing our mission and sponsor materials, and bringing her own body of work for display.

"I create under the name Lady Nakamoto — a philosophical stance against the invisible architectures of power that shape modern life. My work exists at the convergence of politics, philosophy, and culture, where systems of belief are not only governed, but performed, inherited, and remixed."

Beth treats Bitcoin not as a technology but as a cultural and philosophical rupture — a shift from authority-based truth to verifiable truth. Each of her pieces is hand-generated from 300–800 individually placed elements, with digital tools used as a tedious, deliberate medium. Before she made art, she competed in the X-Games and World Cup as a skier and snowboarder. Today she lives and works in Anchorage, Alaska, where she's also in private practice as a Rolfer.

Three Pieces on Display

Along the Watchtower

An echo of Hendrix's rendition. A fractured landscape suspended between warning and awakening — Olympic rings, crumbling monuments, guarded gates, and a winding path upward, all mirroring the line "there must be some kind of way out of here." Here, that way out takes form as Bitcoin. The faint words "Satoshi was here" echo like a whisper from an unseen architect.

The Greatest War

A stylized American pop-propaganda piece. At its center, a saluting blonde figure — Rosie the Riveter, mid-century Americana, postwar optimism. She doesn't salute a flag or a state. She salutes an idea: FREEDOM MONEY. The piece asks whether the American promise of freedom has been co-opted by centralized control — and whether new tools represent a return to its original spirit or a departure from it entirely.

Peer To Peer Ethos

A radiant coin burns like a small sun in the void. Around it, a sacred refrain moves in a circle: mending the hoop of the people, peer to peer. Beneath, language descends like scripture — of flesh as thread, of humanity as a single living tapestry, of a pulse rediscovered between distant hearts.

If you're in Portland on May 22–23, find Beth. She'll have BFTA materials, her own work, and stories worth hearing.

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.

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