Crypto World
Amazon (AMZN) Stock Climbs Following Fauna Robotics Deal
Key Takeaways
- Amazon has finalized its purchase of Fauna Robotics, a humanoid robot company based in New York and established in 2024 by former engineers from Meta and Google.
- The startup’s flagship product, Sprout, is a bipedal humanoid robot measuring 3’6″ tall with a $50,000 price tag, operating on NVIDIA’s Jetson Orin technology.
- The transaction was completed last week, with no public disclosure of the acquisition price.
- Approximately 50 Fauna employees will transition to Amazon’s Personal Robotics Group in New York, functioning under the brand “Fauna, an Amazon company.”
- This acquisition follows closely on the heels of Amazon’s purchase of Rivr, a Swiss robotics company, indicating an aggressive expansion into consumer and delivery automation.
On Tuesday, Amazon publicly confirmed the completion of its acquisition of Fauna Robotics, a startup focused on humanoid robots that was launched in 2024 by engineering veterans from Meta and Google. The transaction reached its conclusion last week, although the purchase price remains undisclosed.
$AMZN has acquired Fauna Robotics marking its entry into the consumer humanoid market after the deal closed last week.
Fauna is developing a compact 42-inch humanoid called Sprout that can walk, grip objects, interact with people and even dance. pic.twitter.com/ibRfxcIOuT
— Shay Boloor (@StockSavvyShay) March 24, 2026
With this strategic purchase, Amazon enters the increasingly competitive arena of humanoid robotics, a sector that has witnessed substantial growth and innovation in recent years.
The flagship offering from Fauna is Sprout — a two-legged robot that stands at 3 feet 6 inches and tips the scales at 50 pounds. The design philosophy emphasizes accessibility and consumer appeal rather than industrial warehouse applications.
Priced at $50,000, Sprout is packaged with integrated software, gripper attachments, and a replaceable battery providing approximately 3 hours of operational time. The robot leverages NVIDIA’s Jetson Orin robotics computing platform and features memory capabilities that develop over time.
Sprout’s capabilities include walking, dancing, door manipulation, name recognition, and engaging in two-way conversations. Notable early adopters include Disney and Hyundai’s Boston Dynamics division.
The entire Fauna team of approximately 50 personnel will relocate to an Amazon facility in New York, maintaining operations under the designation “Fauna, an Amazon company.” Both co-founders, Rob Cochran and Josh Merel, will remain with the organization.
The integration places Fauna within Amazon’s Personal Robotics Group — a distinct division separate from the company’s warehouse automation operations.
Amazon’s Robotics Evolution
Amazon’s involvement in robotics extends over ten years. The company’s $775 million purchase of Kiva Systems in 2012 established the foundation for Amazon Robotics, which currently powers the company’s warehouse automation infrastructure.
Amazon previously ventured into the home robotics market with Astro, a $1,600 mobile household robot introduced in 2021 that continues to operate on an invitation-only basis. Sprout represents a more targeted consumer-focused initiative.
The Fauna acquisition arrives mere days after Amazon revealed its purchase of Rivr, a Swiss enterprise developing robotic solutions for last-mile delivery.
Intensifying Competition in Humanoid Robotics
Amazon enters an increasingly saturated marketplace. Tesla is advancing its Optimus humanoid robot at its Fremont manufacturing facility, with CEO Elon Musk projecting annual production of 1 million units.
Additional competitors in this domain include 1X, Figure AI, Apptronik, Agility Robotics, and China-based Unitree.
Amazon has indicated intentions to leverage its robotics knowledge, retail infrastructure, and devices division expertise to investigate potential applications for personal robots in consumer settings.
According to an Amazon spokesperson, the company is “excited about Fauna’s vision to build capable, safe, and fun robots for everyone.”
AMZN shares concluded Tuesday’s trading session with a 2.28% increase, gaining $4.73.
The integration gives DeFi protocols direct access to institutional-grade order book, spot, and futures data from the largest US crypto exchange.
Coinbase has integrated Chainlink’s DataLink service to publish its premium exchange data onchain for the first time, the companies announced on Tuesday.
DataLink is an institutional-grade data publishing service powered by the Chainlink data standard. Through the integration, DeFi protocols can now access a range of Coinbase’s datasets directly onchain, including order book data, spot prices, perpetual futures data from Coinbase International Exchange, e-mini futures data, and additional datasets spanning crypto, metals, energy, and equity futures via Coinbase Derivatives Exchange.
The data is designed to power more accurate pricing, stronger risk management, and new onchain market types, from derivatives and perpetuals to tokenized real-world assets, structured products, and next-generation lending protocol risk engines.
“We’re excited to build on our existing Chainlink integrations by adopting DataLink to publish Coinbase’s exchange market data onchain for the first time,” said Liz Martin, Vice President of Coinbase Markets. “Our benchmarks enable DeFi and TradFi developers to build more robust onchain apps across derivatives, tokenized assets, and more.”
The DataLink adoption expands an existing relationship. Coinbase’s Base-Solana bridge is secured by Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), and Coinbase selected CCIP as its exclusive interoperability provider for all Coinbase Wrapped Assets. Previously, Coinbase also integrated the Chainlink standard into its Project Diamond institutional tokenization platform.
“Coinbase bringing its exchange data onchain through Chainlink sends a clear signal,” said Johann Eid, Chief Business Officer at Chainlink Labs. “We are proving that the future of finance requires a foundation of uncompromising security.”
Coinbase is the latest in a series of major DataLink adopters. FTSE Russell and the TSX Venture Exchange have also tapped the service to bring their market data onchain.
This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.
US President Donald Trump announced the appointment of 13 members from the crypto, blockchain, AI, and technology industries to his Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, re-established by executive order in January 2025.
In a Wednesday notice, the White House said that the council would include Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Oracle chief technology officer Larry Ellison, and others from major tech companies.
According to the White House, the council could have up to 24 members, many of whom “will be appointed in the near future.”
The council will be co-chaired by White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks and Trump’s science advisor Michael Kratsios. According to the January executive order re-establishing the council under Trump, it will “advise the President on matters involving science, technology, education, and innovation policy.”
Many of the tech industry representatives have a history of supporting the Trump administration. Huang has previously met with the president to discuss export controls for Nvidia’s chips, while Zuckerberg traveled to Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago club in November 2024 after his election win and attended a White House dinner with other executives from tech companies in September 2025.
Related: SEC’s top enforcer clashed over Trump cases before quitting: Report
The appointment of the council’s members came less than a week after the White House released a national AI framework, calling on Congress to pass legislation that will preempt state-level laws. Trump has been pushing Republicans to pass the SAVE America Act — legislation requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote — saying on March 8 that he “will not sign other bills” until it passes.
No timeline on market structure bill in US Congress
Since a comprehensive digital asset market structure bill, called the CLARITY Act, passed the House of Representatives in July 2025, the Senate has faced several setbacks stalling progress on the legislation. From scheduled recesses, to government shutdowns, to industry concerns over stablecoin yield, progress on moving the bill forward was nowhere to be seen.
The Senate Agriculture Committee advanced its version of the market structure bill in January, but a markup in the Senate Banking Committee — essential to address implications on securities laws and regulations — was postponed after Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the company could not support the bill as written. As of Wednesday, the committee had not announced a new date for the markup.
Magazine: The dirty secret about quantum signatures: No one knows if they work
Crypto World
Sky-backed Obex spreads $1 billion across credit, energy and AI assets to expand stablecoin yield
Obex, the Framework Ventures-backed incubator, began deploying $1 billion on Wednesday to link the Sky ecosystem’s USDS stablecoin with income from tangible assets like AI data centers, housing and energy, boosting real-world strategies beyond crypto-native sources of yield.
The first group of assets includes products from Maple, USD.ai, Daylight, Centrifuge, Securitize, River, TVL Capital and Better. Each aims to bridge crypto markets with parts of the real economy, including lending, housing finance, energy and AI infrastructure, often by turning those assets into blockchain-based instruments via tokenization.
The firms will work with Obex to add new tokenized products designed to generate yield and increase USDS use across their platforms. They will also work to develop and roll out new yield-generating tokenized assets.
Sky, one of the oldest decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocols and issuer of the $10 billion USDS, is trying to move past the closed loops that have long defined crypto lending. The protocol brought in $435 million in annualized revenue in 2025 and plans to push the dollar-pegged stablecoin’s supply above $20 billion next year.
Obex is aiming to help Sky get there by plugging new sources of income into the system. Last year, it obtained a mandate to allocate up to $2.5 billion of Sky’s USDS reserves into real-world assets to generate yield.
“We’re moving beyond circular DeFi yield sources and toward high-quality yield from structured credit markets, fintech, energy infrastructure, AI CapEx, real estate, and other productive sectors,” said Parker Edwards, a partner at Framework Ventures.
The push reflects a broader shift toward tokenization, in which assets such as loans, funds, or infrastructure projects are represented on blockchain networks. Proponents say this can make it easier to move capital, track ownership and open access to a wider pool of investors.
The market for tokenized real-world assets is growing rapidly, and tripled in value to $26 billion in the past year, RWA.xyz data shows. That growth has been driven by demand for more stable and predictable returns than those typically found in crypto lending and other speculative strategies.
Bitcoin (BTC) price struggled to break above $72,000, as several key onchain metrics highlighted weakening demand for BTC, casting doubts on its upside potential.
Key takeaways:
-
Bitcoin investors shift to distribution as whales and smaller cohorts aggressively sell under weak market conditions.
-
Bitcoin whale transaction count hits multi-year lows, as smart money waits for policy and geopolitical clarity.
-
Bitcoin’s hash rate fell sharply amid rising energy costs, increasing chances of miner capitulation.
Bitcoin investors “shift to distribution”
Bitcoin investors have are increasingly risk-off, distributing their BTC holdings amid the recent price weakness fueled by the US and Israel-Iran war and other macroeconomic headwinds.
Glassnode’s Accumulation Trend Score (ATS) is near zero (light yellow), indicating that the whales are distributing their BTC holdings or not accumulating.
Related: Bitcoin retakes $71K as US sends Iran 15-point ceasefire plan
The drop in the trend score indicates a transition from accumulation to distribution across almost all cohorts. This shift mirrors a similar pattern observed in early 2025, which aligned with Bitcoin’s drop to $74,500 in April 2025.
Additional data from Glassnode shows a “shift toward distribution or inactivity” among small to mid-sized entities holding less than 1,000 BTC.
This is in contrast to “Q4 2024, where broad cohort accumulation preceded a sustained rally,” the onchain data provider said in a Tuesday post on X, adding:
“Heavy participation across wallet sizes remains a precondition for any durable recovery.”
Bitcoin whale activity “historically quiet”
Reflecting this distribution or inactive accumulation trend is Bitcoin’s whale activity, which has become “historically quiet,” according to Santiment.
Last week, daily BTC transactions above $100,000 fell to just 6,417, the lowest since September 2023. Meanwhile, transfers exceeding $1 million dropped to 1,485, levels last seen in October 2024.
The declining whale activity is largely due to market participants waiting for “clarity from the CLARITY Act,” as well as a long-term solution to the war, according to the data analytics company.
This indicates that “smart money is reluctant to make moves with so much policy and global uncertainty at play,” Santiment added.
Declining Bitcoin network activity
Bitcoin’s inability to sustain the recovery is further evidenced by low network activity and less onchain demand.
CryptoQuant’s Bitcoin network activity index, which tracks key indicators such as daily active addresses, total transactions count, and UTXO count, has been declining since August 2025.
This points to “weaker demand across the network,” CryptoQuant analyst Maartunn said in a recent post on X.
This aligns with weak onchain fundamentals such as liquidity and network growth as tracked by Bitcoin Vector’s fundamental index.
This metric “keeps trending lower and remains well below the strengthening zone,” Bitcoin Vector said in a Tuesday X post.
The onchain data provider described the current market conditions as “stability without support,” rather than a healthy consolidation, adding:
“As long as onchain conditions stay weak, upside looks increasingly dependent on flow, short covering, or external catalysts, not organic strength. If fundamentals don’t recover, this kind of divergence usually doesn’t support a sustained mid-term recovery.”
Bitcoin mining hash rate drops 22%
Bitcoin’s hash rate, a metric that shows the level of mining activity, has dropped sharply over the last couple of weeks, meaning miners are shutting down machines.
The hash rate has fallen to 813 EH/s on Wednesday, from 1.2 ZH/s on March 5, representing a 22% decrease.
Rising energy costs, exacerbated by the US and Israel-Iran war, compressed the hash price below $34 per PH/s/day, which is below many miners’ breakeven levels.
“Bitcoin miners are losing $19,000 on every coin they produce, and difficulty just dropped 7.8% as the miner exodus accelerates,” analysts at Token Metrics said in a recent post on X, adding:
“If difficulty drops another 5%+ within the next 7 days, miner capitulation is accelerating and spot sell pressure will intensify.”
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision. While we strive to provide accurate and timely information, Cointelegraph does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information in this article. This article may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Cointelegraph will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from your reliance on this information.
Startale Group said it closed a $63 million Series A round, adding $50 million from SBI Group to a $13 million first close from Sony Innovation Fund in January.
The Singapore-based company, which operates in Japan, builds blockchain tools for both financial firms and retail users. Its products include Strium, a blockchain for tokenized securities and other real-world assets, yen stablecoin JPYSC, dollar stablecoin USDSC and the Startale app, a consumer app tied to Sony-backed layer-2 network Soneium.
The funding brings together Startale’s two most important strategic partners, the firm said. SBI has worked with the company on Strium and JPYSC, while Sony has backed Startale through its investment arm and its work on Soneium.
The round reflects Startale’s push to build across several layers of the onchain economy, from financial infrastructure and settlement tools to end-user applications.
Startale said it will use the funding to scale Strium for tokenized securities and real-world asset trading, expand adoption of JPYSC and USDSC and develop the Startale app into a broader platform for asset management, payments and onchain services to become a “SuperApp.”
CEO Sota Watanabe said the company will also use the funding to push tokenized stocks tied to Japanese equities and expand yen stablecoin adoption this year.
The round lands as Japan works to test how blockchain systems can connect to existing financial infrastructure. Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said earlier this year she fully supports crypto trading integration into the country’s stock exchanges.
Crypto World
Ripple Partners with Singapore’s Central Bank on Cross-Border Settlement Infra for Trade Finance
The pilot is part of a broader MAS initiative to extend settlement capabilities using tokenized bank liabilities and regulated stablecoins.
Ripple has joined a pilot program run by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), partnering with trade finance platform Unloq to build blockchain-based cross-border settlement infrastructure, according to a press release today, March 25.
The pilot will leverage Unloq’s trade finance platform, which bundles trade obligations, settlement conditions, and financing workflows into a single execution layer, alongside Ripple’s XRP Ledger and its enterprise-focused stablecoin, RLUSD. The pilot is part of BLOOM — short for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency — a MAS initiative to extend settlement capabilities using tokenized bank liabilities and regulated stablecoins. MAS is both Singapore’s central bank and primary financial regulator.
The use case targets a persistent inefficiency in global trade: payments that must be released only when predefined commercial conditions — like shipment verification — are confirmed, according to the release. Ripple says the structure improves risk transparency and could open up financing access for small and medium sized businesses caught in cross-border settlement limbo.
“Singapore continues to take a leading role globally in providing the regulatory clarity necessary for the digital asset space to thrive,” said Fiona Murray, Ripple’s managing director for the Asia Pacific region.
Singapore is known for having one of the earliest and most robust crypto-specific regulatory frameworks globally. The Defiant previously covered how MAS finalized its stablecoin regulatory framework back in August 2023, which requires issuers to peg to a single G10 currency and maintain full reserve backing — conditions RLUSD is designed to meet.
As The Defiant reported, RLUSD crossed $1 billion in circulating supply late last year, and the stablecoin’s supply now sits at $1.43 billion. Last August, Ripple acquired stablecoin infrastructure platform Rail for $200 million to bolster its payments ecosystem. In October, the firm completed its acquisition of global prime broker Hidden Road in October, which it rebranded to Ripple Prime.
The company has been pushing RLUSD into enterprise rails across multiple jurisdictions, including a partnership with OpenPayd to enable euro and sterling cross-border flows.
This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.
A trader works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., March 23, 2026.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Citrini Research, the firm that rattled markets earlier this year with a provocative bearish call on artificial intelligence, is out with another warning — this time arguing an oil-driven slowdown could send equities lower.
Founder James van Geelen said persistently high energy prices risk weighing on consumers and corporate earnings, creating a backdrop where stocks struggle even as the Federal Reserve eventually pivots toward rate cuts.
“If the war doesn’t end, equities will go lower,” van Geelen wrote in a Substack post early Wednesday, pointing to geopolitical tensions as a key driver of sustained oil strength.
Stocks recouped some of the losses Wednesday following reports that the U.S. has given Iran a plan to bring the conflict to an end, sending crude prices tumbling. However, the two countries appear to be very far apart, with Tehran turning down the U.S.’s ceasefire offer and demanding sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.
The latest call builds on Citrini’s growing reputation for contrarian macro views. In February, the firm published a widely circulated note arguing that the AI boom itself could ultimately hurt the economy, pushing unemployment as high as 10% if white-collar jobs are replaced by machines.
Slowdown ahead?
The core of Citrini’s current thesis is that elevated oil prices act as a tax on growth, eroding purchasing power and tightening financial conditions without the Fed needing to take further action. With policy rates already near neutral, van Geelen argued that simply holding rates steady would be restrictive enough as the energy shock filters through the economy.
“We live in a different world now, rates are close to neutral,” he wrote. “If oil stays high, it would be restrictive enough simply to leave them where they are while oil prices filter through the rest of the economy and cause a slowdown.”
That dynamic leaves equities particularly vulnerable, he said. Even in a scenario where geopolitical tensions ease quickly, Citrini sees limited upside for stocks. Consumers would still emerge “slightly weaker” after absorbing higher fuel costs, dampening the strength of any rebound, he said.
The firm’s view also challenges a common bullish narrative that rate cuts would provide a backstop for equities. Instead, van Geelen suggests any eventual easing would likely come in response to deteriorating growth, a backdrop historically associated with further equity declines rather than sustained rallies.
“The Fed knows that raising rates isn’t going to magically make more oil supply,” he wrote, arguing policymakers are more likely to “look through” the shock before ultimately cutting rates as conditions worsen.
The Solana Foundation is positioning the network as core infrastructure for an emerging “agentic” internet, where AI systems—not humans—initiate and execute economic activity.
“AI is not really a vertical. It’s a platform shift… affecting everything across every industry, including crypto,” said Vibhu Norby, chief product officer of the Solana Foundation, during a panel at the Digital Asset Summit (DAS) in New York.
At the center of Solana’s strategy is payments. Norby said the network has already “processed 15 million payments onchain from agents,” largely tied to machine-to-machine commerce. “The programmatic aspect of crypto payments is what is making it interesting for agents,” he said, adding that “stablecoins are going to be the default thing that agents use to pay for any computational resource.”
This shift could fundamentally reshape internet business models, Norby believes. “Agentic payments are probably going to change the entire way that the internet is monetized,” he said, pointing to the ability to support sub-cent, pay-per-use transactions that traditional rails cannot handle.
The Solana Foundation argues that the network’s performance-focused design gives it an edge in this new paradigm. “Agents are cold, calculated machines… they don’t subscribe to crypto religiosity,” Norby said. “If you ask an agent what’s the best way to pay for something with crypto, most of the time, Solana is showing up at the top.”
At the same time, advances in AI are eroding long-standing developer barriers, noting that tools now allow developers and machines to build across ecosystems more easily.
In response, Solana developers are building directly for AI systems. “What agents like is APIs and documentation and skills,” Norby said, pointing to initiatives like machine-readable “skill” files and AI-first developer platforms.
Looking ahead, Norby expects a dramatic shift in user behavior: “The default way people will interact with crypto is going to be through their agent… 95 to 99% of all transactions… will be coming from LLMs.”
Read more: Solana Foundation taps Mastercard, Western Union, Worldpay for institutional developer platform
CoinMarketCap dropped a wordless rocket meme just as its own Fear & Greed Index bounced from extreme fear and Bitcoin ripped from $67k back toward $71k.
Summary
- CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) posted a single rocket emoji alongside a stylized AI-generated rocket-shaped lava lamp image on March 24.
- The post came exactly one day after CoinMarketCap’s own Crypto Fear & Greed Index hit 8 out of 100 — deep in “extreme fear” territory — as traders aggressively dumped XRP, Solana, and DeFi positions amid geopolitical anxiety and macro pressure.
- The broader market context was significant: Bitcoin (BTC) had just surged from a recent low of $67,000 back toward $71,000 on March 24.
CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap), one of the world’s most widely cited cryptocurrency data platforms with over 70 million monthly users, posted a wordless bullish signal on March 24 at 4:00 PM UTC — a rocket emoji and an AI-generated image of a metallic, rocket-shaped lava lamp — at the precise moment sentiment across crypto markets was attempting to reverse from some of its deepest fear readings in years. The post accumulated 34,500 views, 598 likes, and 75 retweets, becoming one of the most-engaged posts in crypto’s trending feed that day.
The timing was pointed. Just 24 hours earlier, CoinMarketCap’s own Crypto Fear & Greed Index had printed at 8 out of 100, locking in one of the deepest “extreme fear” readings of the current cycle, as traders liquidated positions across major altcoins including Solana (SOL) and XRP (XRP). The broader total crypto market capitalization had held around $2.36 trillion even as investors rotated aggressively into cash and stablecoins.
The fear had been building for months. As crypto.news reported in February, the Fear & Greed Index plunged to a yearly low of 5 on Feb. 6 — a level not seen since the depths of 2022 — as the global crypto market cap shed roughly $2 trillion from its 2025 peak. By mid-March, sentiment had crept back toward neutral. But a fresh wave of geopolitical anxiety around Iran dragged it back toward single digits.
The catalyst for the reversal was geopolitical rather than on-chain. U.S. President Donald Trump signaled a pause in military escalations against Iran on March 24, opening the door to diplomatic talks. The announcement triggered an immediate “risk-on” rotation across financial markets. Bitcoin, which had dipped to approximately $67,000 in the preceding days, climbed nearly 4% to breach $71,000 — recovering its market capitalization toward $1.33 trillion, according to Fortune. The wider crypto market cap moved to approximately $2.44 trillion, per CoinMarketCap data, with BTC dominance still elevated at close to 58%.
It was into this precise inflection point that CoinMarketCap chose to post its rocket image. The platform, described in its own documentation as “the Home Of Crypto” and the operator of what it calls “the most trusted” sentiment gauge in mainstream financial media, offered no caption beyond a single emoji. The community read the signal clearly: @DogelonMars replied “Comfy in spot,” while @CaptainBNB_bsc wrote “It’s mesmerizing, I could watch it all day.”
CoinMarketCap’s Fear & Greed Index runs on a 0–100 scale and draws from five data pillars: price momentum across the top 10 non-stablecoin assets, volatility measures on Bitcoin and Ethereum, options put/call ratios, stablecoin supply ratios, and CMC’s proprietary social trend data. CoinMarketCap itself states that “extreme fear likely indicates undervalued asset prices” — and by its own measure, markets had been in that territory for weeks.
Whether the rocket post marks an inflection or a head-fake remains to be seen. But as a sentiment artifact, it captured something real: after months of fear, the data’s own publisher was finally reaching for the launch button.
A decentralized crowdfunding approach is being pitched as a lifeline for NFT artists when market conditions turn sour and traditional middlemen tighten their hold. An on-chain experiment led by longtime collector Batsoupyum and curator Lanett Bennett Grant makes a persuasive case: commit to 1 Ether each week to fund emerging Ethereum mainnet works, share the artists’ stories, and avoid profit-driven flips. The model emphasizes direct, transparent capital flows from collectors to creators, with no centralized gatekeepers dictating who deserves attention.
Originating in an opinion piece by Joshua Kim, CEO and founder of DonaFi, the concept argues that a self-sustaining, on-chain funding pipeline can bypass the friction and fees of conventional platforms. In a bear market, when liquidity is scarce and attention concentrates elsewhere, this approach tests whether a small, committed community can keep artists productive and visible.
Key takeaways
- On-chain, platform-agnostic crowdfunding can deliver predictable funding to artists without relying on gatekeeping or monthly platform fees.
- During downturns, direct from-collector funding can supplement shrinking primary sales and help artists stay active in the ecosystem.
- The approach pairs financial support with narrative context, ensuring supporters see exactly where funds go and artists’ stories travel with each transaction.
- Early supporters demonstrated a network effect—more participants pledged, matched funds, or offered exhibitions—without permission from a central authority.
Crowdfunding without platforms or promises
Everything happens on-chain and in public, one purchase at a time. Artists receive direct payment and gain immediate visibility, while collectors know precisely how funds are allocated. The social layer—stories, context, and curation—travels alongside the transaction rather than getting filtered through a platform’s user interface.
Monthly open calls create a repeatable pipeline for discovery and support. The point isn’t a single philanthropic gesture; it’s sustained visibility and cash flow that can keep artists producing during a downturn. The model strips crowdfunding down to essentials: capital, trust and consistency.
A bear market proving ground
NFT bear markets don’t just depress floor prices; they shrink income for aspiring artists who rely on primary sales to fund new work and cover living costs. In this experiment, the community’s response was swift and tangible. Punk6529 matched the weekly ETH pledge. Sam Spratt contributed $20,000. Bob Loukas added $100,000. Galleries opened exhibitions, and platforms like Foundation pledged to feature works. Crucially, none of these contributions required permission or centralized coordination—the momentum spread through the ecosystem organically.
That rapid, permissionless response illustrates the strength of decentralized crowdfunding in downturns. It prioritizes conviction over optimism and demonstrates a pathway for artists to receive steady support even when demand in the broader market falters.
A networked approach to crowdfunding
What distinguishes this model from traditional patronage is its networked nature. Each participant amplifies the others; collectors don’t replace markets, but help stabilize them. Artists aren’t pigeonholed into charity narratives; their work is valued on its own merits. Platforms and galleries don’t compete with the effort—they extend it, enabling broader visibility and ongoing dialogue between creators and supporters.
As the original proposal notes, decentralized crowdfunding works because it aligns incentives without coercion. No one is locked in or promised upside; yet the outcome—a steady stream of support and authentic storytelling—can arrive swiftly.
Related: AI agents will have growing pains before innovation can start links to broader conversations about technology-enabled creativity and the evolving role of automation in art markets.
Why this model matters in 2026
This isn’t merely about salvaging NFTs; it’s about proving that decentralized capital can function when speculation cools. In a market where hype wanes, what endures is community, transparency and conviction—foundations that artists need to thrive. If the next phase of NFTs is to matter beyond hype cycles, it will depend on collectors showing up consistently, moving funds on-chain to creators, and telling their stories alongside the art.
Decentralized crowdfunding won’t fix every problem artists face, but in a downturn it already accomplishes something far more important: it keeps artists alive in the ecosystem when other channels go quiet.
As this model evolves, observers will want to see whether more artists participate, whether funding can scale beyond a few high-profile contributors, and how broadly the storytelling and on-chain transparency can be sustained. The coming months will indicate whether this on-chain approach becomes a durable backbone for creator ecosystems or remains a powerful, yet niche, instrument in the NFT landscape.
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