{"slug": "bitcoin-s-weirdest-trader-yet-fly-brain-makes-a-profit", "title": "Bitcoin's Weirdest Trader Yet? Fly Brain Makes a Profit", "summary": "Coinbase software engineer Alex Wormuth reported that a simulated fruit-fly brain wired to trade Bitcoin turned a $1 profit on a $100 stake one day after the experiment launched on September 11, 2026. The project, called Stonkfly, feeds Coinbase BTC-USDC market data as an RGB image into thousands of simulated sensory neurons from the MaleCNS v1.0 connectome of an adult male fruit fly, rewarding gains via 15 PAM11 dopamine neurons and losses via two PPL101 aversive neurons. Wormuth cautioned that profitable learning has not been demonstrated, since the $1 gain could reflect market movement plus arbitrary trading decisions.", "body_md": "Bitcoin has no shortage of unusual traders, but a simulated fruit-fly brain might actually be the strangest one to date.\n\nCoinbase's software engineer Alex Wormuth gave a digital simulation based on a fruit fly’s neural wiring $100 to trade Bitcoin.\n\nThe system's trading decisions are based on neural activity. One day after launching the experiment, Wormuth reported a rather surprising early result: the fly was up $1.\n\nUpdate: the fly made a $1 profit pic.twitter.com/PqcuCO01Nb\n\n— Alex Wormuth (@nftechie_) September 11, 2026\n\nThe experiment, which has been dubbed \"Stonkfly,\" connects an extremely complex simulation of an adult male fruit fly’s nervous system to Bitcoin price data and Coinbase. It is based on the recently released MaleCNS v1.0 connectome.\n\nThe important caveat is that there is no literal living fly sitting in front of a trading terminal (if this is not abundantly clear).\n\n## How trading works\n\nStonkfly takes public BTC-USDC market data from Coinbase and converts it into an RGB visual representation. That image is then fed into thousands of simulated sensory inputs that correspond to neurons in the visual system of the insect.\n\nIf the portfolio makes money, Stonkfly stimulates 15 identified PAM11 dopamine neurons. If it loses money, two PPL101 neurons associated with aversive signaling get activated.\n\nOf course, profitable learning has not been demonstrated. A $1 gain could be simply market movement combined with arbitrary trading decisions.\n\n## Fly-brain experiments\n\nThere has been a flurry of fly-brain experiments after a major neuroscience milestone was announced earlier this month.\n\nWith the help of AI, scientists from Google Research and several other institutions produced a complete connectome of the brain and central nervous system of an adult male fruit fly. The map contains 166,700 neurons and captures the wiring extending through the brain, optic lobes, and ventral nerve cord.\n\nThe fly can be made to do a surprising number of things. Wormuth previously created DOOMFLY, which connects the same MaleCNS model to the classic video game Doom.\n\nOther developers have already connected fly-connectome simulations to Beat Saber, Super Mario 64, Minecraft, Pong, and so on.\n\nI wireheaded the fly and forced it to doomscroll flytok.\n\nDopamine neurons are measured and artificially enhanced to ensure maximum enjoyment.\n\nMy goal is to create a fly that is happier than all other flies combined. pic.twitter.com/xs4iKhCMzD\n\ni trained the fly to solve rubiks cube \n\nis there anything this little guy can't do? pic.twitter.com/sE0qJPCNEj\n\nOf course, the researchers did not recreate an entire living brain. Neurotransmitters, chemical modulation, gene expression, and other extremely sophisticated processes cannot be fully reproduced with the aforementioned simulation.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/bitcoin-s-weirdest-trader-yet-fly-brain-makes-a-profit", "canonical_source": "https://cryptonews.net/news/bitcoin/33432140/", "published_at": "2026-09-11 21:51:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-11 22:22:25.204328+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-research", "neural-networks", "artificial-intelligence"], "entities": ["Alex Wormuth", "Coinbase", "Stonkfly", "MaleCNS v1.0", "Bitcoin", "Google Research", "DOOMFLY", "BTC-USDC"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/bitcoin-s-weirdest-trader-yet-fly-brain-makes-a-profit", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/bitcoin-s-weirdest-trader-yet-fly-brain-makes-a-profit.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/bitcoin-s-weirdest-trader-yet-fly-brain-makes-a-profit.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/bitcoin-s-weirdest-trader-yet-fly-brain-makes-a-profit.jsonld"}}