When we talk about Bitcoin moving from a savings tool to a medium of exchange, we mean platforms like Scarce City. Founded in 2020 by Chris Tramount and Aryan Jabbari, the New York-based marketplace and auction house lets sellers list physical goods, art, and digital collectibles that buyers acquire exclusively with bitcoin, with Lightning powering the small-ticket flow alongside on-chain settlement for higher-value lots.

Scarce City fits the Fulgur thesis squarely. We back teams that turn Lightning into real economic activity, not abstract experimentation, and Scarce City does exactly that: every auction is a live demonstration that bitcoin works as money for actual goods. The team has cultivated a community of artists, makers, and node-runners who use the platform both to sell and to discover, creating a flywheel where Bitcoin-native commerce becomes its own cultural circuit rather than a niche checkout option.

The bigger picture is a parallel commerce stack denominated in bitcoin. Most e-commerce today routes through card networks, FX rails, and platform middlemen that extract fees and impose policies. Scarce City points at an alternative: open marketplaces where settlement is final, fees are minimal, and creators capture more of the value they produce. As Lightning capacity and UX continue to mature, this model scales from collectibles and merch into broader categories.

Our partnership with Scarce City began in 2021, and the team has stayed remarkably disciplined: ship features Bitcoiners actually use, run auctions that draw real bidders, and let the marketplace speak for itself. That is exactly the kind of long-horizon, product-led builder we want to back as Bitcoin commerce comes of age.