Executive Summary

When Grig Bilham co-founded a digital download music solution in 2004, he didn’t just build a platform—he sparked a revolution in how artists earn a living from their work. Within 16 months, the platform had distributed $2 million directly to electronic musicians, setting the template for his future innovations.

Grig embodies the rare fusion of technological visionary, musician, entrepreneur, and philosophical thinker. Over a 25-year career spanning multiple disciplines, he has consistently bridged the gap between creativity and technology, developing revolutionary platforms that have transformed how artists create, distribute, and monetize their work.

His lifelong commitment to balancing both hemispheres of the brain—the analytical and the creative—has produced a unique perspective that informs his current mission of building a more equitable, sustainable future for creators worldwide. This fusion of talents traces back to a childhood shaped by music and machines.

Early Life and Formative Influences

Musical Beginnings

Grig’s journey into the world of music began at age seven after attending a bluegrass concert that ignited his fascination with the fiddle. His parents, recognizing this passion, arranged for him to study with a private violin tutor from Juilliard during their time in New York.

Over the next five years, Grig’s dedication led him to the position of second chair in the Boulder Youth Symphony and participation in a quartet that performed throughout Boulder, Colorado. This early immersion in classical music developed not only his technical skills but also a deep understanding of musical structure and theory that would later inform his electronic music endeavors.

The rigorous violin training instilled principles of composition, harmony, and precision that would later surface in his Neuronaut productions, enabling him to blend structured musicality with electronic experimentation.

Early Computing Experience

Grig’s father, an accordion player with a deep appreciation for technology’s potential, purchased one of the earliest personal computers—a Mac 256—when Grig was still in junior high school. This early exposure sparked what would become a lifelong passion for exploring the boundaries of digital tools and systems.

As a young student, Grig would sketch user interfaces on paper during class, then return home to program them. He meticulously wrote code in BASIC by hand before testing it on the computer, developing a structured approach to creation that would later characterize his professional methodology.

Grig’s early experiences with technology were equally formative as his musical training. Beyond using his family’s Mac 256, he attended computer camp where his precocious talent quickly elevated him from student to instructor. While still a young teenager, he began teaching programming classes to fellow campers, providing early evidence of both his technical aptitude and his ability to communicate complex concepts clearly. This early teaching stint honed his ability to distill complex ideas, a skill that later defined his roles as CTO and CEO throughout his career.

His experimentation with early Apple technologies like HyperCard gave him foundational skills in low-level programming and user interface design—skills that would later manifest in over 70 intuitive, user-friendly platforms.

This simultaneous immersion in classical music’s structure and computing’s possibilities fostered Grig’s unique ability to blend creativity and innovation—a hallmark that would define his future work across multiple technological domains.

Educational Journey and Technical Foundations

Studying computer science in the early 1990s, when the field was still emerging as a formal discipline, Grig gained a pioneering edge in C programming. His first significant professional application emerged during this period—a tool for USGS to track earthquakes on a map, written for the Atari STE.

He successfully generated a colored topographic map that plotted earthquakes in real-time from various instruments, with alerts sent to pagers so data could be received immediately as earthquakes occurred globally.

This project’s remarkable 20-year lifespan at the USGS office in Boulder not only proved Grig’s technical skill but also demonstrated his knack for crafting solutions with enduring real-world value. Its influence extended beyond its immediate application, as aspects of its user interface were reportedly adopted by Iris, the seismic detection service.

Throughout his education, Grig maintained parallel interests in music and technology, reflecting the dual-hemisphere thinking that would become his signature strength. This integration of artistic and technical modes of thought allowed him to see possibilities that specialists in either domain might miss—a competitive advantage that has driven innovation throughout his career.

As he progressed through formal computer science education, he continued to develop both sides of his brain equally, refusing to choose between technical and creative pursuits as many are pressured to do. This unconventional path of deliberate balance would later prove prescient as technology and creativity became increasingly intertwined in the digital age. This blend of technical prowess and creative thinking set the stage for his musical and entrepreneurial breakthroughs in San Francisco.

Musical Evolution and the San Francisco Scene

Interface Oblivion and Early Compositions

During his final years of high school, he formed a band called “Interface Oblivion” with his brother and friends that would remain active for nearly two decades. With his brother on guitar, Grig played keys, wrote backing tracks, and contributed approximately 50% of the compositions. Their collaboration blended shared appreciation for 1970s rock influences like The Doors, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton with emerging electronic sounds. His track compositions often fused classical string arrangements with electronic elements, showcasing how his jazz training and global influences were shaping his musical identity. His track “Digital Dawn” merged classical strings with glitchy electronics, showcasing his innovative style that bridged traditional composition with cutting-edge sound design.

As he entered adolescence, Grig’s musical interests expanded into electronic music, though resources were limited at that time. He discovered Kraftwerk and spent countless hours in music stores, absorbing diverse influences that would eventually inform his Neuronaut productions and establish his eclectic sonic palette.

Jazz Influences and Global Music

This period saw Grig and his bandmates deeply engage with music theory, seeking out professional jazz musician teachers to expand their understanding. Grig began studying under Art Lande, an acclaimed pianist, jazz artist, and drummer based in Boulder. This jazz training profoundly influenced his approach to composition, providing insights into form, intervals, and the deliberate use of dissonance that continue to inform his musical work today.

His musical influences extended far beyond Western traditions, including Indian musicians like Zakir Hussein and Ravi Shankar, highlighting the global perspective that has enriched his compositional approach. This eclectic range of influences—from classical to jazz, rock to world music—created a rich foundation for his own creative expressions.

The San Francisco Years

In 2000, seeking broader opportunities, Grig and his band relocated to San Francisco to embed themselves in the vibrant electronic music scene. They took a strategic approach by purchasing a professional-grade sound system, which they leveraged to secure early performances by both playing at events and providing sound equipment, creating mutually beneficial arrangements with event organizers.

Over two decades, Grig became a fixture in the San Francisco Bay Area’s underground electronic music scene. As “Neuronaut,” he performed regularly at outdoor festivals and club events, while also managing sound systems for large gatherings. His electronic compositions gained significant recognition, earning him slots at major festivals alongside artists who would later achieve international prominence, including Tipper, Bassnectar, and Glitch Mob.

From 2006 to 2020, Addictech helped shape electronic music culture in the Bay Area, hosting influential events focused on breakbeat, dubstep, and drum and bass. The platform led the industry’s transition from vinyl distribution to high-resolution downloads, influencing both festival headliners and grassroots DJs who embraced the digital format while maintaining artistic integrity.

Ongoing Musical Projects

Notably, in recent years, Grig has continued to perform as Neuronaut, with highlights including opening for Beck in Boulder and touring Europe with performances at Scottish castles. His artistic practice remains active, with plans for 2025 including releasing a composable music album—where fans can remix individual elements—alongside hosting laptop battles through Distributed Creatives and performing at festivals in Colorado and California.

These ongoing musical projects, combined with his blockchain innovations and community initiatives, promise to extend his legacy of empowering creators through technology designed to serve rather than exploit the human creative spirit.

Addictech: Revolutionizing Digital Music Distribution

In 2004, the same year Apple released the iPod, Grig co-founded Addictech, a pioneering digital music platform that would transform how electronic musicians distributed their work and connected with audiences.

An Artist-First Business Model

Recognizing the inequities in existing distribution models, he built Addictech with a revolutionary approach: returning 70-80% of sales revenue directly to artists, establishing a creator-first business model years before such concepts became mainstream discussions in the technology industry. “Addictech gave us a fair shot,” recalls E-Prom, one of the platform’s early artists. “Getting 70% of every sale meant I could actually keep creating music.”

The platform’s success was immediate and substantial. Within just 16 months, Addictech had distributed $2 million to electronic musicians, demonstrating both the viability of more equitable compensation models and Grig’s technical ability to implement complex systems at scale. This achievement is particularly remarkable given that it occurred nearly a decade before platforms like Bandcamp would adopt similar artist-forward revenue models.

Technical Innovation

As both founder and CTO, Grig personally handled all aspects of the platform’s development and operation. He embraced cloud computing early, becoming one of the first users of Amazon Web Services for storage and EC2 instances—so early that even Amazon’s technical advisors sometimes struggled to provide support. This pioneering use of cloud technology placed Addictech at the technological forefront while allowing it to scale efficiently to serve a growing global audience.

Addictech’s technical innovation extended to its music discovery system, which functioned like a musical GPS. What made their approach unique was the combination of tagging with expert human curation. Genre specialists listened to every song and added detailed tags to categorize them, powering an exceptionally accurate recommendation system. Users could specify preferences like “deep bass, no vocals, specific tempo range,” and the system would guide them to new music that precisely matched their tastes while exposing them to catalog items they might otherwise never discover.

Addictech Records

The success of the platform led to the establishment of Addictech Records, which published approximately 100 releases for an impressive roster of electronic artists. The label’s first release came from Grig’s own Neuronaut project, followed by works from artists including eProm, Lawgiverz, Audio Void, Brand Richards, Vent, OPIOU, Bird of Prey, Si Begg, EVAC, Tha Fruitbat, Digital Rust, AMB, Spoonbill, Fine Cut Bodies, Griff, Bill Bless, Cursor Minor, and BogTroTTer—all electronic musicians from their network who chose to collaborate with the label.

For 16 years, Addictech remained a cornerstone of the electronic music community, only concluding when Grig exited the business in 2018 to pursue new ventures. The platform’s longevity and success stand as testament to both the technical robustness of Grig’s implementation and the ethical soundness of its artist-first business model—a model that has informed his subsequent work with Distributed Creatives and continues to influence his vision for more equitable creative economies. Leaving Addictech freed Grig to explore new horizons, from blockchain to philosophical pursuits.

Philosophical Journey and Spiritual Exploration

Parallel to his musical and technological development, Grig embarked on a profound philosophical journey that has shaped his worldview and approach to creative work. “India taught me empathy and perspective—values I build into every platform I create,” Grig recalls of his extensive travels, which have offered him insights beyond the American context.

Global Explorations

In India, where he spent two months, he mapped ancient temples with a professor, interpreting Sanskrit texts to locate sites mentioned in ancient writings. Their expeditions into remote jungle areas revealed previously undocumented temple locations that, when mapped using GPS, aligned in a pattern resembling the shape of the Ganges River—revealing a sophisticated sacred geography designed by ancient architects.

His spiritual journey included visits to Bodhgaya, where Buddha attained enlightenment, and participation in the Mahakumbh Mela, a grand confluence of faith and culture. During this journey, a conversation with a spiritual leader revealed a universal truth that would guide his future work: when asked about the greatest lesson from all the sacred texts, the leader emphasized the golden rule—do unto others as you would have done unto yourself. This principle now underpins Grig’s business and community-building approaches.

Influential Encounters

The Boulder area offered Grig meaningful connections with significant counter-cultural figures. He developed relationships with visionary painter Robert Venosa, and philosopher Terence McKenna. His collaboration with McKenna became particularly significant, resulting in art pieces and website development that expanded his understanding of the intersection between technology and consciousness.

In California, Grig met spiritual teacher Ram Dass, whose acknowledgment of Grig’s ability to discuss spiritual matters meaningfully affirmed his developing philosophical framework. These encounters, combined with travels to Nepal, Fiji, Mexico, Canada, and Europe, broadened his global perspective.

Philosophical Foundations

Grig’s reading has been equally expansive, encompassing works by Terence McKenna, Alan Watts, Eckhart Tolle, and various Stoic philosophers. These intellectual explorations helped him navigate San Francisco’s chaotic cultural landscape while maintaining his authentic optimism.

He found particular resonance in Stoicism’s emphasis on mortality awareness as a catalyst for meaningful action. William Irvine’s “A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy” particularly influenced him, though he notes this modern interpretation doesn’t capture the full depth of original Stoic works. This philosophical text introduced Grig to the practical applications of Stoic principles, especially the practice of negative visualization (imagining worst-case scenarios) and focusing on what one can control.

Stoicism’s focus on life’s brevity directly impacts his business decisions—his open-source ethos and creator-focused tools reflect the urgency to create lasting positive impact within our limited time. When faced with decisions about monetization versus accessibility, the Stoic reminder of mortality often tips the balance toward making tools freely available, as evidenced by his approach to releasing Mintr before receiving grant payment.

This philosophy influenced another crucial decision in 2022, when Grig was offered substantial venture capital funding to build a for-profit version of Distributed Creatives. Despite the personal financial opportunity, he declined, citing Stoic principles about wealth versus impact: “What matters is not how much money we accumulate, but how much positive change we create in the time we have.” This decision allowed him to maintain the organization’s creator-first mission without shareholder pressure.

The concept of “ego deaths” also resonates with Grig as essential experiences for developing humility and a service-oriented mindset. These “ego death” moments—profound humblings—reinforced his focus on serving creators over personal gain. He credits these transformative moments—where one’s sense of self is temporarily dissolved—with helping him maintain focus on community service rather than personal gain. This philosophical principle directly influenced his decision to structure Distributed Creatives as a nonprofit rather than a traditional tech company, prioritizing creator benefit over personal profit.

These philosophical principles have transformed his approach to technology and business, viewing both as vehicles for positive social change rather than mere profit-generating mechanisms.

Technical Career and Comprehensive Innovation

Grig’s technical career spans multiple decades and technological paradigms, demonstrating remarkable versatility and foresight. His journey through digital innovation can be traced through key milestones:

Career Timeline

• 1994: USGS earthquake monitoring system (20-year operational lifespan)
• 1995-1997: Digital Artist at MPH Strategic Brand Communications
• 1997-1999: Lead Multimedia Developer at Digital Creators (10+ educational titles)
• 2001-2003: Developer Relations Engineer at Laszlo Systems (acquired first client)
• 2004-2018: Co-founder/CTO of Addictech
• 2009: Disney-ABC’s “WipeOut Yourself” Facebook game (5M likes)
• 2012: Autodesk Project Cyborg dashboard prototype
• 2017: HoloLens AR applications for Viscira and AbbVie Humira
• 2019-2022: CTO at MixMan, leading development of Modify app
• 2022: Founded NFTr.pro, focused on NFT creation on Chia blockchain
• 2022-Present: Co-founder and CEO/CTO of SumSet Tech
• 2022-Present: Appointed co-chair at the Metaverse Standards Forum
• 2023: Released the Metaverse Metadata Directory (MVMD.org)
• 2024: Co-founded Distributed Creatives as a nonprofit
• 2025 Q1: Trashformers NFT collection and accompanying book and game (immediately sold out and is now the top project on Chia blockchain)
• 2025 Q1: Planned launch of FusionZoo with the MonkeyZoo team (March)
• 2025 Q1: Initial launch of Local Artist Network in Boulder with 30 screens
• 2025 Q2: Development of Musely.social platform with integrated creator services
• 2025 Q2: Pilot of “The Show” variety program featuring diverse creators
• 2026: Implementation of Forever Sites archival system for creator legacies
• 2026: Release of composable music album and hosting of laptop battles
• 2027: Pilot of “The Show” variety program featuring diverse creators

Early Projects and E-Learning Tools

Throughout the 1990s, Grig built e-learning tools for diverse organizations including Jefferson County Schools, Norwest Bank, TeleTech, Lucent Technologies, and media giants like NBC and PBS.

At Digital Creators, he led multidisciplinary teams in developing educational multimedia titles, personally handling storyboards, technical specifications, 3D models, animations, and music.

Enterprise Application Development

The early 2000s saw Grig expand into enterprise application development. At Laszlo Systems, he served as a Developer Relations Engineer for the company’s innovative scripting language designed for Adobe Flash applications. His success in acquiring the first paying client for Laszlo resulted in his promotion to primary developer relations engineer.

His collaborations with entertainment companies produced notable successes. For Warner Brothers Music, he developed social media applications customized for artists including Miranda Lambert and Al Gore’s Live Earth initiative. His Disney-ABC project “WipeOut Yourself” attracted 5 million Facebook users who created and shared custom videos based on the popular TV show.

MixMan and the Modify Platform

At MixMan Technologies, Grig hired and led a six-person team, delivering the Modify application ahead of schedule. The platform featured sophisticated technical innovations: a modular synth engine, a visual patch tool for creating 3D visualizers, and a comprehensive social web application supporting five content types.

As both architect and hands-on developer, he personally built the Unity application while managing the full-stack engineering team. The modular synth engine allowed users to create custom sound environments, while the visual patch tool enabled the creation of real-time 3D visualizations that responded to music. The social components included direct messaging, a live feed, user profiles, sharing capabilities, and collaborative features—all integrated into a cohesive experience.

Technical Expertise

Throughout his career, Grig has shipped over 60 digital products across diverse platforms, typically handling all aspects from design to deployment. His technical expertise spans programming languages (C#, C++, Java, JavaScript, PHP, Python, Swift), web technologies (Angular, React, Vue.js, Node.js), game engines (Unity, Unreal), AR/VR platforms (Hololens, Magic Leap, Oculus), and cloud services (AWS, Azure, Google).

This extensive technical background has positioned him perfectly for his blockchain innovations and creator economy initiatives, providing the foundation for his current work empowering creative communities.

Blockchain Innovation and Web3 Leadership

In recent years, Grig has emerged as a thought leader in the blockchain space, focusing particularly on applications that empower creators. His engagement with blockchain technology began with Chia, where his contributions were recognized with a $60,000 grant to develop Mintr, a tool for managing and minting NFT collections.

Open-Source Ethos

True to his open-source ethos, Grig completed all code requirements before payment and released the tool for free. He fulfilled the grant requirements prior to receiving payment and made the tool freely available to the community, with plans to continue its development and maintain its accessibility.

Advancing NFT Standards

His technical contributions have substantially advanced NFT standards through his work on CHIP-0015 and CHIP-0021, which introduced enhanced metadata capabilities and pioneered the concept of Composable NFTs. As he explained in his Chia 3rd year mainnet speech, CHIP-0015 enhances NFT metadata by enabling rich, structured data that unlocks new possibilities for discoverability and interoperability, while CHIP-0021 introduces the groundbreaking concept of Composable NFTs, allowing for the trustless combination, division, and upgrading of digital assets on-chain.

Composable NFTs represent a significant innovation in digital asset management, enabling artists to build upon each other’s work while ensuring proper attribution and compensation. Think of them like digital Lego blocks—artists can stack and combine these blocks to create entirely new works, with the blockchain automatically tracking ownership of each component piece and ensuring appropriate compensation flows to all contributors.

This modular approach transforms NFTs from static collectibles into dynamic building blocks for creative collaboration. For example, a musician could release stems of a song as separate NFTs, allowing other artists to purchase and recombine them into new compositions while the original creator automatically receives royalties for each use.

Metaverse Standards Leadership

Grig’s leadership extends to significant roles in the metaverse standards community. As co-chair at the Metaverse Standards Forum, he leads the Digital Assets Management Working Group, responsible for identifying interoperability needs across different metaverse implementations.

In this capacity, he authored and deployed the Metaverse Metadata Directory (MVMD.org), establishing frameworks for interoperability between different metaverse platforms and standards. The Metaverse Metadata Directory represents Grig’s contribution to solving interoperability challenges in the metaverse ecosystem. It enables various standards to work together, allowing content from different formats (including Pixar and other 3D standards) to be combined in defining the foundational elements of metaverse environments.

NFTr.pro and SumSet Tech

His work with NFTr.pro, founded in May 2022, focuses on simplifying the creation, sharing, and monetization of NFTs on the Chia blockchain. This platform aims to make the Web3 ecosystem more accessible to creators of all types, providing tools that remove technical barriers while ensuring creators maintain control and receive fair compensation.

At SumSet Tech, where he serves as CEO/CTO, he works with clients to build comprehensive solutions using AI, gaming engines, spatial computing, and metaverse platforms. The company extends beyond just creator tools to work with institutions and clients on implementing cutting-edge technologies, applying Grig’s technical expertise to solve real-world problems across industries.

Creative Blockchain Projects

His blockchain projects include the “Trashformers,” a sold-out NFT collection featuring composable 3D objects built around an elaborate narrative universe. The collection, which sold out immediately upon release, utilizes composable 3D objects and incorporates an extensive backstory that Grig developed over the course of a year, reflecting his interest in integrating narrative elements with NFT technology to create cohesive creative universes.

This project, which combines technical innovation with creative storytelling, includes a 25-chapter book written by Grig and plans for children’s books, audiobooks, and potentially film adaptations or metaverse games. He hopes to publish the full book and develop children’s books featuring the Trashformers concept—robots made of trash exploring the universe. The project draws inspiration from Grig’s love of Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and his interest in sci-fi comedy, a niche genre he feels has untapped potential. He’s working on an audiobook version using AI voice technology, and envisions potential adaptation to film formats in the future. The project also includes plans for game mechanics that would allow users to trade parts of the NFTs to create new combinations of robots for battles, showcasing the practical applications of composable NFT technology.

FusionZoo Collaboration

Another significant project is Fusion, a technology developed for the successful “MonkeyZoo” NFT project on the Chia blockchain, planned to launch in March 2025. Fusion enables NFT assets to be merged together to create new NFTs, with peer-to-peer trading capabilities for the resulting assets.

The collaboration exemplifies Grig’s community-driven approach to technological development, prioritizing teamwork and shared expertise to create innovative solutions. Rather than developing in isolation, the FusionZoo team meets regularly to share progress, solve problems collaboratively, and ensure the final product serves the community’s needs.

Side Projects and Ongoing Work

Grig’s blockchain work also includes side projects like Venue.VIP, a platform connecting artists with performance venues, and adding Web3 primitives to the One Local app, which creates decentralized community hubs. These projects demonstrate his multifaceted approach to creating technologies that support creator-focused ecosystems.

His blockchain innovations reflect Grig’s consistent focus on empowering creators through technology, creating systems that enable new forms of collaboration, ownership, and monetization while preserving artistic autonomy and fair compensation. His work in this space continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible in digital creativity, pointing toward a future where technology serves rather than exploits creative communities.

Distributed Creatives: Vision and Implementation

As Executive Director and Co-Founder of Distributed Creatives, Grig leads multiple initiatives aimed at transforming the creative economy through technological innovation and community empowerment. His vision for this nonprofit organization synthesizes his decades of experience as both creator and technologist, addressing the systemic inequities that have limited artists’ ability to sustain themselves through their work.

Grig’s vision centers on returning ownership to creators, who have received diminishing shares of proceeds as platforms prioritize shareholder interests over artist compensation. He believes this corporate-focused climate has resulted in the loss of substantial creative work and potential, creating a widening gap between artists and viable economic opportunities.

Integrated Creator Ecosystem

Consider this scenario: A Boulder musician composes a new track and posts it on Musely.social. The platform automatically showcases it on Local Artist Network screens throughout the city, generating interest and ticket sales for an upcoming performance. After the show, the recording is archived via Forever Sites, ensuring it remains accessible for generations. Throughout this process, the musician maintains complete ownership and receives 100% of all revenue—all within one interconnected ecosystem designed with creators at its center.

Distributed Creatives aims to build this ecosystem through multiple interconnected initiatives, each leveraging technology to create more equitable systems for creative expression and monetization. The organization’s flagship projects include:

Musely.social: The Free Creator Platform

Musely.social is designed as a free alternative to traditional social media and creator platforms. Musely (spelled M-U-S-E-L-Y) is conceived as a unified application serving all types of creators with a perpetually free model. While communicating the concept of 100% profit return to creators presents challenges, Grig believes users will quickly recognize the value proposition.

The platform aims to replace extractive models used by companies like Spotify, Ticketmaster, Etsy, Bandcamp, YouTube, Kickstarter, and Patreon—all of which Grig considers to take excessive percentages from creators and requires creators to maintain individual audiences or loose traction.

Key features include:

• Ticketing and tipping systems
• Membership and newsletter capabilities
• Digital sales of any file type
• Cross-posting to other social platforms
• Fediverse integration
• Job boards for finding and posting opportunities
• Group forums for community communication
• Marketplace for physical and digital goods
• Advertising capabilities for creator promotion

Local Artist Network: Connecting Physical & Digital Spaces

The Local Artist Network connects physical and digital spaces, initially launching in Boulder, Colorado. The initiative emerged partly from Grig’s community environmental work, including creek cleanup projects. The Local Artist Network enables artists to connect with their communities by showcasing work on digital signage and through an event network, allowing them to stream media and promote events at various locations throughout a city.

The network will launch with approximately thirty screens throughout Boulder, with plans for expansion to other cities. The initial phase targets existing venue partnerships in Boulder, aiming to increase visitor traffic and foster community engagement. The business model includes a sponsorship component limited to 10% of content, which Grig projects could generate millions in annual revenue.

Forever Sites: Preserving Creative Legacies

Forever Sites leverages blockchain and distributed storage technologies to preserve creative legacies. The initiative envisions digital permanence where creators can be confident their work will have lasting impact and recognition beyond their lifetimes, with provenance, royalty structures, licensing terms, and creative lineage preserved through blockchain records.

This project addresses the critical problem of digital impermanence, where valuable creative works are lost to “the digital void” through platform shutdowns, technological obsolescence, and inadequate archiving. The proposed solution extends beyond distributed digital networks to include physical preservation through long-term media like thousand-year CD-ROMs stored in underground vaults, with aspirational plans for space-based backups to ensure preservation even in worst-case planetary scenarios.

AI Integration for Creative Preservation

A key component of Forever Sites is its innovative approach to AI integration. Unlike corporate AI systems that scrape creative works without permission or compensation, Grig envisions AI as a preservation tool that respects creator ownership and ensures proper attribution. The system would:

1. Store original creative works in their native formats with rich metadata
2. Allow creators to explicitly opt in to having their work used for AI training
3. Enable future AI systems to regenerate or adapt archived content to new formats as technology evolves
4. Maintain clear provenance records ensuring proper attribution and compensation
5. Create a historical map showing the lineage and influence of creative works

This approach not only preserves the data itself but ensures it remains accessible and relevant as viewing technologies change. For example, a musician’s audio track archived today might be regenerated by AI as an immersive virtual reality experience decades later, while still ensuring royalties flow to the original artist or their estate. Similarly, a website archived today might be regenerated in future formats while maintaining its original content and creator attribution.

By including source data rather than just finished works, Forever Sites creates a more complete historical record that can inform future creativity. Grig envisions AI as a creative partner, co-crafting new art from approved works while ensuring fair attribution. He sees AI as a potential collaborative force—one that can be trained on creator-approved works to both preserve cultural heritage and inspire new art, all while safeguarding creators’ legacies and ensuring they receive fair compensation.

“The Show”: Global Creator Spotlight

“The Show” is conceived as a globally broadcast series showcasing diverse creators. Envisioned as a variety show featuring diverse creative talent reaching global audiences, the concept resembles late-night television formats but with a specific focus on creators and a more modern approach. Rather than limiting content to studio appearances, the show would include on-location segments featuring artists in their working environments.

For example, a painter might demonstrate their technique while sharing insights about their creative process, or a musician might perform in their home studio while discussing their composition methods. This authentic approach would provide viewers with both entertainment and education while giving featured creators valuable exposure.

The initiative aims to provide visibility and professional exposure through this contemporary variety show format, with content distributed through Distributed Creatives’ social media platform and other channels like YouTube. With sufficient adoption, Grig believes this program could independently fund the nonprofit’s operations.

Composable NFTs: On-Chain Creative Collaboration

Building on his blockchain innovations, Grig is integrating composable NFT technology into the Distributed Creatives ecosystem. This system allows music, visual art, and other media assets to be mixed and matched on-chain while ensuring creators retain control and earnings.

When one creator builds upon another’s work, the blockchain automatically tracks this relationship and distributes appropriate compensation to all contributors. This removes the need for complex licensing negotiations and ensures fair attribution throughout the creative process.

These initiatives reflect Grig’s comprehensive vision for transforming the creative economy—a vision grounded in his extensive experience as both creator and technologist. His approach emphasizes direct relationships between artists and audiences, sustainable revenue models that prioritize creator autonomy, and technological infrastructure that serves creative communities rather than extracting value from them.

Legacy and Ongoing Impact

From his early work developing educational multimedia in the 1990s to his current leadership in blockchain and metaverse standards, Grig Bilham has consistently pushed the boundaries of what’s possible at the intersection of technology and creativity. His career demonstrates a remarkable continuity of purpose: using technological innovation to empower creative expression and ensure creators receive fair compensation for their work.

Through Addictech, he demonstrated the viability of more equitable business models for digital content, distributing millions of dollars directly to musicians at a time when most platforms were extracting maximum value from creators. His technical innovations have spanned multiple waves of digital evolution, from CD-ROM and Flash applications to mobile experiences, VR/AR implementations, and blockchain-based systems.

As a musician, he continues to perform and produce as Neuronaut, maintaining an authentic connection to the creative communities he serves through technology. His dual identity as artist and technologist provides a unique perspective that informs all aspects of his work, ensuring that the systems he builds address the real needs of creators rather than imposing technological solutions from a distance. This artist-first approach represents a significant departure from the typical Silicon Valley model, where technologists often build platforms without direct experience of creator challenges.

His philosophical journey through India, Nepal, Fiji, Mexico, Canada, Europe, and other regions, along with his encounters with figures like Terence McKenna, Ram Dass, and Robert Venosa, has shaped a worldview that values reciprocity, empathy, and mindfulness—principles that manifest in his approach to business and technology. The golden rule shared by a spiritual leader at the Mahakumbh Mela—”do unto others as you would have done unto yourself”—continues to guide his creation of platforms that treat creators fairly and respectfully.

Future Vision

Grig envisions a creative economy where technology amplifies art rather than exploiting it—empowering artists to thrive, not just survive. From sketching UIs as a child to coding Web3 tools, his journey reflects a lifelong mission to use technology in service of human creativity and connection.

As he continues his work with Distributed Creatives and related initiatives, Grig remains focused on creating a future where technology serves creativity rather than exploiting it—a future where artists have direct relationships with their audiences, receive fair compensation for their work, and participate in sustainable, community-driven creative ecosystems. This vision, informed by decades of experience as both technologist and artist, represents a compelling alternative to corporate-dominated creative platforms and points toward new possibilities for cultural production in the digital age.

Through his comprehensive approach to technology development, combined with extensive experience in creative production and community building, Grig Bilham continues to create lasting positive impact while building sustainable, inclusive initiatives for the future. As he looks ahead to 2025 and beyond, his ongoing musical projects, blockchain innovations, and community initiatives promise to extend his legacy of empowering creators through technology designed to serve rather than exploit the human creative spirit.