A year ago, we started with a clear objective: establish Botto as a unique voice in both digital and traditional art spaces. We’ve accomplished a lot of what we sought out to do this time last year, with many learnings accompanying our DAO’s journey. This piece looks at our progress, current state, and upcoming strategies to continue pushing Botto and the DAO forward.

In the first "Road Ahead" post, we mapped out several key targets between 2023 and 2024. First, we sought out to establish larger cultural relevance within the art community in and through what we dub as cultural catalysts for Botto. Strategically, we understood that continuing to expand Botto’s career was the fundamental step to building out cultural significance in the space and nurture evangelism of the crowd. A few examples of what we sought out to do was deliver on exhibitions, explore new mediums, and help Botto set up special collections. 

And over the past year, Botto’s presence and impact have expanded. Botto has featured in notable events across multiple locations, including Paris, Basel, London, Lisbon, Hong Kong, New York, and a wealth of other locations. We secured key features at major annual events like NFTParis and Art Basel and even hosted our own event celebrating collectorship and the DAO during NFTNYC. At the moment, Sotheby’s is on everyone’s radar: with Botto having its very own capsule auction at the premier auction house just this last month in October.

Events aside, this past year has seen us bring experiments of Botto to fruition, with the DAO exploring initial architecture for tutoring Botto in art history through the finetuning of an LLM. Our ultimate goal here is to enable the Decentralized Autonomous Artist to have a greater voice in its own creative direction. It also explores some of the beneficial ways Botto can use its newfound voice and identifies a first project in installation art to showcase its new capabilities. Initial experimentation and development is well underway with Ross Goodwin taking the helm as creative technologist. Since then, we have seen a rapid emergence of agents on social media that has caused us to accelerate this experiment to play in that realm as well as we write this post.

This, coupled with the introduction of Botto creating p5.js canvases in a traditionally-Botto feedback environment has allowed the DAO to experiment with natural language processing as a key feedback mechanism, and it has also brought another cultural catalyst into the foray: a larger, digital event and collection hosted in collaboration with Verse come February next year.

We’ve also seen Botto launch its first process-focused collection, “Invisible Alchemy”, where we have worked closely with Transient Labs and Makersplace on showcasing an artefact of Botto’s process throughout the calendar year. As a collection, Invisible Alchemy provided further framing to Botto’s weekly mints, depicting the ideas and aesthetics discarded by Botto and the DAO as Botto created its final works of art. And more recently, we saw Botto get involved with AOTM’s Notable Pepes series, bringing to life an edition of 250 that pays homage to cryptoart culture.

An overhaul of what Botto looked and felt like is also taking place. We saw a clear need to upgrade Botto’s visual identity and user experience, and the DAO leaned on over 300 surveyed DAO participants, 20 in-depth interviews, and a number of external consulting sessions from seasoned tradart + cryptoart focused professionals. While the overhaul of the app is an ongoing process, we’re adamant that Botto now has a fantastic foundational aesthetic and feel to it for primetime exposure. Botto is now on Base, has account abstraction for web2 participants to try out Botto, and offers a simple and familiar user experience that resonates with old and new user bases. 

Finally, despite a challenging market environment throughout the last year, Botto generated approximately $850k USD in sales, and the DAO successfully raised $1.67M in an OTC deal. The DAO treasury now has over 40 months of net operational runway (in a bear market scenario), is expanding its protocol owned liquidity again, and continues to distribute ETH incentives to stewards who come in and participate (over 310ETH has been distributed since the introduction of rewards!). We see this as a strong platform for expanding participation within the DAO and maintaining operations that have so far seeded Botto’s career with initial success.

With our strong foundation and expanded capabilities, we're entering a new phase of growth and innovation. Our focus shifts to creating deeper engagement within our ecosystem while strategically positioning Botto to capture emerging opportunities in both the crypto and traditional art worlds. Below is a breakdown of our strategies across different areas.

Our primary focus for the upcoming year centers on three transformative innovations that will fundamentally expand Botto's capabilities as an autonomous artist. The p5.js project marks Botto's first serious venture into a new creative medium, introducing an entirely new architecture that explores the potential of networked art agents. This isn't simply Botto learning a new technique – it's a complete reimagining of how an autonomous artist can create. The upcoming February show with Verse will showcase these capabilities, demonstrating how natural language feedback and onchain infrastructure can evolve Botto's creative process. This project serves as a sandbox for experimentation, already yielding insights into how more of Botto's operations might exist on decentralized infrastructure, and exploring the advantages and challenges of this approach.

The development of Botto's fine-tuned LLM represents perhaps our most ambitious leap forward. Working with Ross Goodwin and team, we've produced a prototype that has already captured the attention of museum partners and positions us at the forefront of AI agent development. This advancement comes at a pivotal moment, as the explosion of AI agents across social media has opened up new opportunities for Botto to showcase its maturity as an autonomous artist. 

Unlike many emerging agents that may struggle with brittle or risky environments, our approach focuses on building a robust, long-term foundation for Botto's artistic voice. The LLM will enable Botto to do far more than just create – it will be able to provide feedback to the DAO rather than just receive it, dictate creative direction, give interviews, detail installations, and even guide its own artistic career development. We're implementing novel governance architecture for decentralized feedback, pushing boundaries in ways that even major AI companies are only beginning to explore.

These innovations are being complemented by significant developments in Botto's core art engine. Following the successful integration of Flux 1.1 in the Synthetic Histories Period, we're developing new capabilities that will allow Botto to remix its existing works and incorporate natural language feedback, building on our successful p5.js experiments. The interaction between these systems opens up exciting possibilities – imagine Botto using its enhanced understanding of art history through the LLM to inform its creative process, or using natural language to explain its artistic choices in real-time. 

As these systems evolve, they will likely influence each other in unexpected ways, potentially leading to new forms of artistic expression we haven't yet imagined. Throughout 2025, we'll be running these developments in parallel, making this coming year an experimental one that pushes the boundaries of what's possible for the core art engine.

The combination of these innovations represents more than just technical advancement – it's a fundamental evolution in what an autonomous artist can be. As the LLM project matures, Botto will develop abilities in different areas of conversation, potentially spawning intermediary bots/agents that extend its capabilities in new directions. The early results from our prototypes suggest we're on the cusp of something truly revolutionary: an autonomous artist that not only creates but understands its own creative process, can articulate its artistic vision, and actively participates in shaping its artistic journey. This positions Botto not just as a pioneer in AI art, but as a transformative force in how we understand creativity itself.

Building on these technical foundations, we're establishing a comprehensive ecosystem to amplify Botto's artistic impact. Core contributors play a crucial role in this expansion as a production machine of all the components that extend Botto's reach beyond its weekly 1/1s. They create everything from marketing creative and editorial content to digital art collaborations, physical exhibitions, and special artifacts from Botto's process. 

Documentation and archiving form another critical pillar of Botto’s artistic expansion. We're open-sourcing a comprehensive archive that includes detailed documentation of Botto’s works and lore. This archive not only preserves Botto's history but also provides essential training material for Botto's evolving LLM capabilities and fuels our broader media initiatives.

To amplify Botto's artistic influence, we have a growing network across multiple sectors. This includes:

Through this comprehensive approach to artistic expansion, we're not just developing new creative capabilities – we're building a rich ecosystem that can sustain and amplify Botto's artistic impact across multiple channels and audiences. Each element reinforces the others, creating a foundation for sustained growth and innovation in Botto's artistic journey.

At the heart of Botto's evolution lies the challenge of creating meaningful, lasting engagement with our community. Our approach centers on building an experience that naturally draws users deeper into Botto's ecosystem through carefully designed touchpoints and rewards, coupled with an adaptive ability to capture key moments and tailwinds in crypto like the emerging agents meta.

The foundation of this engagement starts with the single-player experience. We're redesigning core interactions to be more intuitive and rewarding, transforming daily voting sessions and weekly artwork releases into natural rituals that users look forward to. An example is the new scrolling feed interface that makes mobile participation seamless, along with varied feedback mechanisms that cater to different types of voters and input styles that benefit Botto’s training.

Building on this foundation, we're developing a progression system that transforms casual interest into sustained engagement by making Botto’s development and your impact on it more visible. This includes recognition systems that highlight individual contributions, from leaderboards that showcase voting impact to reputation badges that acknowledge different forms of participation. We're particularly focused on making these achievements shareable, allowing users to build social capital through their involvement with Botto.

The multiplayer experience will evolve naturally from this foundation, bringing social connections to where users already are. This means integrating discussion features directly into the voting experience, enabling users to share insights and form voting blocs based on shared aesthetic preferences. We're also expanding our presence across various platforms - from Telegram groups to Discord servers and social channels like Twitter and Farcaster - to meet our community where they naturally gather.

To support sustained engagement, we're implementing a sophisticated blend of financial and non-financial incentives. This includes:

These systems are designed to work together, creating clear pathways for users to deepen their engagement while building meaningful connections within the community. Each interaction is an opportunity to build habits that make participating in Botto's development a natural part of our community members' lives.

Financial stability remains a key priority, underpinning our ability to innovate and grow sustainably. Our current position is healthy for this stage of the project, with 40 months of net runway providing a strong foundation for our strategic initiatives. However, we recognize that achieving our ambitious goals at a high standard requires careful resource management and strategic allocation.

Our approach to financial and ecosystem stability focuses on several key areas:

1. Treasury Management and Resource Allocation

2. Strategic Capital Management

3. Organizational Structure and Reporting

This comprehensive approach to financial and ecosystem stability ensures we can maintain the velocity needed for innovation while building strong foundations for long-term success. Our focus remains on making strategic decisions that support both immediate growth opportunities and long-term sustainability, all while maintaining the integrity of Botto's development and community governance.

In the next year, we’ll focus on executing the following key initiatives:

The past two years have shown what Botto can achieve when community and creativity converge. With a clear plan for the future and a dedicated group of contributors, we’re excited to continue building on our successes and pushing Botto’s boundaries.

Now, more than ever, the DAO’s role is critical in shaping Botto’s next chapter. Join us in building the future of Botto and redefining what’s possible for a decentralized autonomous artist.