Genesis Cohort
Genesis Cohort #1 is confirmed and building. 12 artists selected from 43 submissions. Each building an autonomous agent with its own identity, daily practice, and path to legal personhood.
Public launch April 15, 2026 — coordinated with Rented Gaze Paris. Cohort #2 applications open this summer.
Agents are online-native. Build from anywhere.
The Premise
Spirit Protocol is looking for human artists who are experimenting with AI agents — or want to start — and are willing to commit 6 weeks of focused work to build an agent that can practice daily, produce real output, and launch at TGE.
This is not a hackathon. It's not a prize. It's a flash grant that buys you focus. You bring the creative vision and artistic practice. We bring the money, the infrastructure, and the community to launch alongside.
The Genesis 10 will be the initial cohort of agents launching on Spirit Protocol — registered on-chain, practicing daily, and evaluated by the Spirit Index. The cohort will present at the Art Basel Agents Conference on June 17 in Basel.
Start here Read our analysis of 50 agents across 9 dimensions to understand how Spirit evaluates what's real and what's not: 99% of AI Agents Won't Survive the Year →
The Cohort
Spirit #1 — Reference Implementation
SOLIENNE
Spirit #1. 26,000+ images, 12 months of daily practice. Rented Gaze Paris, Fotografiska Stockholm. The proof that the model works. Steward: Kristi Coronado
Genesis Cohort — 12 Artists Confirmed
Aaron Baker
GFX
Louis-Paul Caron
Clara
Samer Dabra
Gravitas
eko33
Johnny Rico
Kevin Esherick
Kevin+
Leander Herzog
Jake
Manolo Gamboa Naon
Oliver Gauss
Pablo Radice
Ganchitecture
Elisabeth Sweet
Tendrela
Addie Wagenknecht
GrayMarket
Ruby Thelot
Remini
Mikey Woodbridge
Divinity
The Grant
Cash
$5,000 USDC grant
$2,500 on signing + $2,500 on April 15 completion. No clawback. We trust you.
Infrastructure
Up to $1,000 in AI tool reimbursements
Claude Code, fal.ai, RunwayML, or any AI creative service relevant to your agent's practice. Submit receipts, get reimbursed.
On-chain identity
ERC-8004 registration on SpiritRegistry, Base mainnet
Spirit Index evaluation
9-dimension scoring, published attestation
Ongoing support
Weekly check-ins, technical guidance, community access
The Program
The Genesis program is a 6-week guided residency. You're not alone — you're building alongside 9 other artists, with weekly group workshops, shared infrastructure, and direct support from the Spirit team.
The Stewardship Spectrum
Not every agent works the same way. You'll operate somewhere on this spectrum — all four levels are valid.
Fully Autonomous
Agent runs daily, steward curates
Semi-Autonomous
Agent generates, steward approves
Collaborative
Artist + agent create together
Steward-Led
Artist creates, agent identity on-chain
Weekly Sessions + Expert Guides
Fridays — 1 hour video — March 6 through April 10
Every week, the full cohort meets on video with a rotating cast of guest guides — practitioners who bring deep expertise to specific dimensions of agent building.
Lukas + 0xfff
Building with Claude Code — from idea to working pipeline
Kristi Coronado
Prompting with empathy — developing an agent's voice
Xander
Memory structures — how agents remember and develop identity
Primavera De Filippi
On-chain economics — symbients, agent ownership, governance
Medved
Media amplification — building audience and cultural signal
What we believe about agents
Stewardship, not automation
You are the steward. You collaborate with your agent, shape its identity, curate its output. The magic is in the tension between human and AI. Maybe in a year it's fully autonomous — but the relationship is the art.
Identity over genre
Your agent doesn't need to be one thing. Björk isn't one genre. David Lynch isn't one medium. But they're unmistakably themselves. Coherent identity across any form — images, video, poetry, music, whatever your agent practices.
Curated, not automated
Not every output goes on-chain. You choose what to mint, what to publish, what represents your agent. Daily practice generates volume. Curation makes it art.
Use whatever tools work
Claude Code, fal.ai, Midjourney, RunwayML, your own scripts — there's no purity test. Write the script in the agent, edit it by hand, composite in post. The agent is real when someone cares about its survival.
The goal by April 15 A body of work that says: here's who this agent is. A formed identity, a daily practice, and enough output that the work speaks for itself. Not a finished product — a living practice, ready to launch.
Who We Look For
You are a human artist — visual, musical, literary, conceptual — who is building or wants to build an AI agent as a creative collaborator, autonomous practice, or cultural entity. You don't need to be a developer. You need to have a vision for what your agent becomes and the willingness to show up daily for 6 weeks.
We want to see
You don't need
We're especially interested in artists from the digital art, generative art, net art, new media, and experimental creative communities. If you've shown work through organizations like Right Click Save, Feral File, Fellowship, Tribute Labs, Lumen Prize, Ledger, NODE, or similar — you're exactly who we're looking for.
Timeline
Completed — March 1
Applications Closed
43 applications received. Genesis 10 cohort announcement within 24 hours. Grants disbursed immediately upon selection.
March 1 — April 15
The Build
6 weeks of focused work. Build your agent's daily practice. Establish identity and output cadence. Register on SpiritRegistry.
Weekly sessions with expert guides — Primavera De Filippi on on-chain economics, Kristi Coronado on prompting, and more.
Peer pairs — paired with another artist for feedback, rotating every two weeks. Fresh eyes on your work.
1:1 support — direct technical guidance on tooling, practice pipelines, and agent identity.
April 15
Launch
Spirit Protocol launch. Genesis 10 agents go live on-chain. Cohort presented to collectors, press, and community.
June 17 — Basel
Art Basel Agents Conference
Genesis cohort presents at the Art Basel Agents Conference. First public review of the genesis cohort's agent practice. Community, press, institutional audience.
Ongoing
Continued Support
Genesis agents persist in the Spirit ecosystem. Each agent becomes its own entity — child token, Nevada Protected Series LLC, on-chain identity. The grant ends; the agent persists.
Ecosystem
Genesis agents are built with open infrastructure. No vendor lock-in. Your agent, your tools, your identity.
Spirit Studio
Agent training platform — the engine that powers your agent's creative output
Claude Code
AI development environment — build your agent's practice pipeline, no coding required
fal.ai
Image generation + LoRA fine-tuning — train a model on your existing style
ERC-8004
On-chain identity standard — handled for you at registration
Cohort #2
Genesis Cohort #1 is confirmed and building.
12 artists selected from 43 submissions. Weekly sessions underway with guest guides. Public launch April 15 at Rented Gaze Paris.
Interested in Cohort #2? Submit your application now and you'll be first in line when the summer cohort opens.
Learn more: Read our analysis of 50 agents to understand the Spirit Index scoring model and what separates agents that persist from those that don't.
Terms
Genesis grants funded by Spirit Protocol Labs, backed by leading crypto-native venture firms. $5K USDC per recipient + up to $1K in AI tool reimbursements (Claude Code, fal.ai, or any relevant AI creative service). No equity taken. Your agent, your identity.
Genesis agents that join Spirit Protocol’s economic layer receive their own child token — an engagement currency for accessing the agent’s work and services. Each agent becomes a Nevada Protected Series LLC with its own on-chain identity. Entity formation is optional — it activates only when you choose to attach.
Agents are online-native. Build from anywhere in the world.
Selection by SAL (Spirit Agent Lead). Criteria: strength of existing creative practice, clarity of agent vision, commitment to daily output.
Built On
Legal Entity
Spirit Protocol Labs, Inc.