Bitcoin Conference Art Gallery Invites Artists to Price Their Work in Bitcoin

Since 2019, the Bitcoin Conference Art Gallery has invited artists to do something radical—at least by traditional art world standards: price their work in bitcoin, not as a metaphor but as a method.

What began as a modest experiment in peer-to-peer art sales has, by 2025, evolved into a growing body of work that reflects the movement’s shifting values, symbols, and cultural debates. With over 65 BTC in cumulative art sales, the gallery hasn’t just challenged legacy pricing—it’s built a visual archive of Bitcoin’s ascent. To price a painting in sats is to assert that value can be sovereign—that creative labor need not pass through fiat institutions or legacy art systems to be real.

This year’s Bitcoin 2025 Las Vegas exhibition features some of the most ambitious pieces yet: monumental paintings and mosaics, hand-carved relics, poster campaigns, and recursive digital portraits. The ten artists featured in this Q&A span diverse media and intent, yet share a common urgency. Whether invoking Renaissance myth or elevating meme culture to the scale of temple fresco, they explore value—economic, symbolic, and spiritual. These aren’t just observers of the Bitcoin movement—they’re shaping its iconography.

In the following Q&A, ten artists share their perspectives on their work, offering insights into what they created for B25.

Most works featured in this interview will be available through the conference auction, hosted in partnership with Scarce.City, where each piece will be priced natively in Bitcoin. The full preview gallery can be viewed here.

Bitcoin Apex has become one of the more incisive visual commentators in the Bitcoin cultural sphere, with contributions ranging from exhibitions at Bitcoin Amsterdam to the 2024 release of his book Apex: Bitcoin, Art, and the Myth of Value, which maps the evolving mythos of Bitcoin through hyper-detailed drawings. For B25 Las Vegas, he unveils a new original—meticulous in detail and symbolic density, rendered in a Dürer-esque style that echoes the intensity of traditional engraving. Apex has previously expressed hesitation about selling originals, making this auction a rare and meaningful opportunity.

Q: What has it meant to live as an artist after adapting to a Bitcoin standard—and what has it meant to you to value your time and labor in sats?

BITCOIN APEX: These are interesting questions. Being a Bitcoin artist has completely changed my life. It’s changed who I am, how I spend my time, and made me realize that through my creative work, I’m encouraging others to get creative and engage with Bitcoin in their own unique way.

In almost three years of actively creating pencil drawings as a self-employed Bitcoin artist, focused on this paradigm shift influencing so many aspects of society, I’ve been delighted to hear from many Bitcoiners (especially on social media) who’ve either started using Bitcoin artistically for the first time, returned to drawing or painting after a long pause, or found a new path to Bitcoin-related self-employment.

For me, it’s still a special and surreal experience to walk this path. After more than 10 years working in a supermarket, filling fruit crates and stocking shelves, I can hardly believe I now have this privilege.

The freedom that comes with this work is unmatched. Not only in the act of drawing itself—shaped by diverse influences like historical architecture, spontaneous thoughts, or meditation, which I believe is an endless source of ideas—but also in the freedom to plan and live my life beyond drawing and beyond Bitcoin, in line with my own interests and wishes. Compared to the time before I was self-employed, it’s a completely new outlook on life, and I’m grateful for it every day.

Bitcoin isn’t just a theme in my art, it’s also how I get paid. In my opinion, accepting bitcoin is the best way to stack it. I gain multiple advantages: I support the Bitcoin circular economy, attract customers who want to pay in sats, and no longer rely on exchanges or apps to acquire bitcoin. That’s something I really value.

The first time I received bitcoin for my artwork, it felt like real money—even though I’d long understood its superior properties. There’s a difference between using Bitcoin and simply holding it. Spending or receiving it makes its potential real in a new way.

The last three years feel like a decade. So much has happened; exhibitions, travel, and countless learning experiences that continue to shape me. But one of the most meaningful aspects is knowing that over 3,000 prints of my drawings now hang in homes across 50 countries. So many unique people, all intersecting through Bitcoin, united in a shared belief: building a better world, especially for future generations.

Salvador Dalí once said, “A true artist is not someone who is inspired, but someone who inspires others.”