Crypto-trading fly brain simulation down 1% after first day

An artificial fly brain simulation can now buy and sell bitcoin, ether, USDC and solana on the Coinbase exchange.

Coinbase engineer Alex Wormuth built a replica of a fly's neural network and connected it to Coinbase's AI agent software. The simulated brain can respond to current market prices by buying, selling or holding digital assets.

After one day of trading, the fly's portfolio shows a loss of nearly one dollar.

Its current portfolio consists of $59 in USDC, roughly $5 in bitcoin, $17 in ether and $17 in solana.

I gave the fly brain $100 to trade bitcoin.

Dopamine neurons are stimulated when the fly makes profit. Neuron activity controls buy/sell decisions and makes trades on coinbase.

Will the fly get rich? pic.twitter.com/XVWSFattGu

— Alex Wormuth (@nftechie_) September 10, 2026

Fruit fly brain fully mapped by research team

The crypto-trading fly's brain simulation is based on a neuron map published last week by Google and researchers from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Research Campus.

The team said they had charted the brain and ventral nerve cord of an adult male fruit fly, capturing 166,000 neurons and 125 million synapses. They described it as "the largest brain map by number of neurons to date."

Creating the connectome, as the map is called, required two decades of work.

The findings are expected to aid scientists in understanding how the brain handles complex behaviours and in researching conditions like Alzheimer's, dementia and schizophrenia.

Developers give fly brain unusual tasks

With the fly's brain now available to the public, developers have started creating even stranger experiments for it.

A developer using the handle "Breg Grockman" says he has trained the fly to parallel park a vehicle.

In his simulation, the fly's brain controls a 3D Mini Cooper S, reportedly capable of a three-point turn and honking the horn.

why can the fly do a three point turn pic.twitter.com/j3veXMZ7T0

— Breg Grockman (@alright_mark) September 11, 2026

Grockman is also selling ad space on the virtual car; two spots have been taken by crypto traders advertising memecoins "$FLYCOIN" and "$CARLA".

An AI game developer has also taught the fly to solve a Rubik's Cube, while another trained it to play Beat Saber.

Some users claim to have subjected the brain to doomscrolling, and Wormuth's newest project places it in a Facebook-like stimulus environment.

I wireheaded the fly and forced it to doomscroll flytok.

Dopamine neurons are measured and artificially enhanced to ensure maximum enjoyment.

My goal is to create a fly that is happier than all other flies combined. pic.twitter.com/xs4iKhCMzD

— Matty Hempstead (@mattyhempstead) September 10, 2026

AI researcher Evan Sinclair Smith says he has loaded the brain into Minecraft and built an in-game fly for it to control.

The most unusual experiment comes from AI developer Nico Christie, who says he "turned the fly bisexual" by blocking its "mAL output" and recording its neural spike reactions to female and male fly brains.

Fly brain simulation not conscious

It is important to note that this is not the consciousness of a sentient fly uploaded online.

Smith explained that his Minecraft demo rebuilds the fly's neural wiring to guide movements in the game. He called it "an interactive way to explore a connectome, not evidence of consciousness or a complete recreation of a living fly."