Mars Robertson is making art that acts like money

What if your business card was a piece of art – and a challenge to the global financial system? For artist and self-described “hacker” Mars Robertson, that’s exactly what it is. His handmade note-style designs draw inspiration from fiat currency, but they deliver a very different message. 

“I am the hustling artist who is making money, making sales, stacking sats,” he told The Crypto Radio at Bitcoin FilmFest in Poland.

Each note looks like fiat currency at first glance – but none are real bills. Some are wallet-sized. Others are blown up into large-format pieces.

Blurring the line between artwork and message, Robertson’s creations raise questions about power, permission, and systems. “The best way to make money is to make money,” he said.

Art as a tool for free expression

Some of Robertson’s note-style pieces include QR codes and cryptographic motifs. Others layer in symbols and phrases drawn from Bitcoin and decentralized networks – designed not just to decorate, but to carry embedded meaning. “Art has capacity to pass through filters of censorship,” he said.

“People can see Bitcoin art, Bitcoin culture in daily life,” he added. Whether slipped into a book, handed to a stranger, or displayed in a gallery, each note functions as a quiet messenger – sparking curiosity where direct advocacy might be ignored.

Rather than using actual currency, every piece begins as a blank sheet. “My look is just my art expressed through higher dimensional fields of energy,” he said.

“Good artists copy, great artists steal,” he added, quoting Picasso. It’s a line that fits his approach: borrowing a familiar format and subverting its meaning from within.

Bitcoin as belief, not just value

Robertson first encountered Bitcoin in 2013, when a friend told him to “just buy.” At the time, it was trading around $100. Like many early adopters, he went through the full cycle of emotional highs and market volatility.

“When you are an inexperienced trader, you experience human emotions related to greed, euphoria. It's easy to make mistakes,” he told The Crypto Radio. But over time, his perspective shifted away from speculation and toward principle.

“Bitcoin is a hope like literally… hope for a fair financial system, hope for justice in the world,” he said. For Robertson, Bitcoin is not just a form of money, but a platform for imagining new social infrastructure.

“I think that the future of planet Earth will be based on Bitcoin,” he said. But he also tempers that vision with a sense of scale – and humility. “Life is very transient. It could be the solar flare, it could be an asteroid, comet, super volcano.”

His aspirations go beyond financial tools. “I’m hoping that the government will become more transparent,” he said. He imagines open-source alternatives to traditional systems like land registries, identity documentation, and public databases. Yet he also cautions against imposing one model onto others. “I don't want to be the guy who is a Neo-colonialist and says to the guys, 'hey, you need to have birth registry or death certificates,'” he said.

Beyond Bitcoin maximalism

While Bitcoin forms the core of his belief system, Robertson is far from tribal. “Unity in diversity, other blockchains exist,” he said. “I am a big believer in blockchain, not just Bitcoin.”

“I am not a Coca Cola maximalist, and I am not a beer maximalist. I use different chains,” he added, smiling.

This openness carries over into how he approaches community and commerce. “Often you need to make multiple touch points to make a sale, you need to educate people.” His art acts as that bridge – a physical, symbolic starting point that can lead anywhere.

He accepts both fiat and crypto and sometimes even trades his note-style art directly – occasionally for fresh berries. “I could run a fractional reserve and give away all the berries. But even if I do this the following year, you can come to my place and pick up fresh berries,” he said.

Living and working through rapid change

Robertson doesn’t offer predictions about Bitcoin’s price or political status. When asked where he sees Bitcoin in five years, he answered instead with a personal vision: “I hope to be still alive in great health, always sharp, always meeting the right people in the right place, in the right time, in the flow.”

“I have one life, one life to realize my full potential to live my true purpose.”

One recent spark came from a documentary on mobile-first financial innovation in Africa – Unbankable by Liam Willms – viewed at Bitcoin FilmFest. “Can Africa save the world?” he asked, pointing to decentralized systems that arose from necessity rather than ideology.

He doesn’t want to dictate answers – he wants to spark new questions. “Do we know if there is gold in Fort Knox?” he asked.

For Robertson, questioning systems isn’t just part of the process – it’s the point. From handmade banknotes to scaled-up visual statements, his art invites others to reimagine the frameworks we live inside – and what might come next.