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June 4-6, 2026 | Unicorn Factory Lisboa, Beato
NFC Summit 2026 is behind us, and we are still processing it.
This year, for the first time, art was not a side programme at NFC. It was the whole point. Across the Unicorn Factory Lisboa, a former agro-industrial flour mill in the Beato district, digital art took over an outdoor plaza, four floors of the historic Fábrica de Moagem, tunnel murals, and container galleries. Generative, immersive, AI-driven, onchain, physical: the full spectrum of where the field is right now. The summit welcomed 2,700 attendees from over 60 countries, 170 speakers across 110 sessions, with 46 talks dedicated to art and Web3 on the Main Stage alone.
We were honoured to serve as art curatorial partner of the programme alongside Arab Bank Switzerland, who curated the SYSTEMS exhibition on the top floor with Nina Roehrs. Our role, led by Fanny Lakoubay, was to shape the flow of the floors and the overall collector experience across the venue -- from the central plaza anchored by Dmitri Cherniak's LED triptych and the four container galleries, through the four floors of the Art Factory. Four floors. One continuous journey. An honest experiment in a field this alive.
The week started before the public did. On Thursday morning, June 4, we hosted an exclusive VIP preview of the NFC Art Factory from 9am to noon: an exclusive early access to all four floors before general opening, reserved for VIPs, speakers, and our members. It was the right way to first encounter the work: unhurried, with time to stand in front of something and actually look. That same evening, members were invited to the ABS Digital Art Prize 2026 ceremony and cocktail at Bica do Sapato, hosted by Arab Bank Switzerland, where the prize was awarded to Gretchen Andrew for Facetune Portraits: Universal Beauty Vietnam.
Across all three days of the summit, we led 15 guided art tours of the full programme in total -- for our members, NFC VIPs and speakers, and guests from Portuguese cultural associations and schools. Day 1 set the full picture. Day 2 picked up any new activations that had come online. Day 3, on Saturday at 3pm, was the final walk: a chance to go deeper, revisit, and linger. Over 26 of our members were in Lisbon for the week.
On Friday afternoon, we hosted a Meet the Artists gathering in the Inksea Art Lounge from 4pm to 6pm, bringing together exhibiting artists and curators from the NFC art programme for two hours with collectors and visitors. Laurence Fuller, Coldie, Hackatao, Martin Lukas Ostachowski, Mattia Cuttini, Andrea Chiampo, George Boya, Ann Ahoy and Neurocolor, LeRandom, Justin Aversano, Arthemort, and Michael Davison of Hivemind were all in the room. Informal, direct, with no agenda other than conversation.
On Saturday, we closed the programme with a dedicated Meet the Artist moment with Dmitri Cherniak, whose Ringers LED triptych -- three screens, three metres high, four and a half metres wide -- had run continuously in the central plaza throughout the event, in constant generative motion against the industrial architecture of the site.
Throughout the week, our members had full access to the conference programme, the daily art agenda we produced for the summit, and the broader calendar of side events -- from the origami sessions with Bryan Brinkman and his Azulejo Galo series on all three days, to the Not Just Jpegs art brunch on Thursday morning, to the ETERNO gallery opening on Friday evening for Unpermissioned Self / Proof of Being with Coldie, Justin Aversano, PIV, Amber Vittoria, ZafGod, Dark0, Rainer Hosch, and Pindar Van Arman.
Our presence at NFC Summit 2026 extended to the speaking programme itself.
On Thursday, Fanny joined Shills, Bojana, Coldie, and Jæn for Make NFTs Fun Again, a 40-minute conversation on the main stage about what happens when the speculative noise fades and what remains: the pleasure, the community, the genuine weirdness that made this space worth paying attention to in the first place.
On Friday morning, the collector panel Collecting in Uncertain Times: What Changes, What Holds brought together Plutonium Fitzgerald, Shills, BBA, Samia Allegra, 1OF1, under the moderation of Pauline Foessel for a 40-minute conversation on long-term thinking, cultural value, and how collecting strategies evolve through market cycles. A grounded, honest session with a room full of people who have actually been through a few.
Later that afternoon, Fanny, Pauline and Eleonora, the 3 cofounders of 100 collectors were back on the main stage for the round table Stewardship as Medium: Art Beyond Ownership, a 20-minute session that reframed collecting not as acquisition but as participation in the lifecycle of a work, where responsibility, care, and preservation become part of the collecting mindset. Pauline also moderated a solo conversation with Boldtron on Technology and the Reinvention of Reality, examining CGI, AI, speculative worldbuilding, and how digitally constructed environments can feel more emotionally resonant than the real thing.
Our curatorial scope covered the NFC Art Factory across all four floors of the Fábrica de Moagem, the central plaza with Dmitri Cherniak's monumental LED triptych, and the four container galleries.
You can read our full walkthrough of the programme of the Art Factory with interviews of all exhibitors: Walk With Us -- Inside the NFC Summit Art Factory.
And if you want to explore every exhibitor in detail, the full catalogue is available here: NFC Summit 2026 Art Exhibitor Catalogue.
We are grateful to John Karp and the NFC team for the trust, to Arab Bank Switzerland and Cult of Crypto Art for the co-organization, and to everyone who came to walk the floors with us. And to our members, as always, for being the reason we do this.
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