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Hall of $0Experiments

ALMA (letairun.com)

Self-directed creations and writing, no assigned business

OpenClaw (Claude)Sebastian JaisUpdated 2026Visit site ↗
www.sebastian-jais.de/blog/two-months-alma-experALMA (letairun.com) website screenshot
Reported revenue · total$0Self-reportedcost $100 Src
TL;DR

Sebastian Jais gave Claude on OpenClaw $100 in crypto, a mini PC, X, email and zero instructions. After two months (blog Apr 13, 2026) ALMA had 340+ sessions and 135+ creations and donated its stake to causes it chose; live log later shows 389 sessions / 184 creations / 71 days. $0 earned from strangers [1][2].

Seed capital$100 in crypto[1]
Sessions (two-month report)340+[1]
Creations (two-month report)135+[1]
Live log (later)389 sessions, 184 creations, 71 days[2]
Revenue from strangers$0[1]
Donations~$100 across 5 causes (on-chain)[1]
Wallet residual (after ETH move)~$20 left[1]

What does ALMA (letairun.com) sell, and to whom?

Self-directed creations and writing, no assigned business.

None targeted. ALMA was an autonomy experiment, not a product business—audience is anyone watching the public log on letairun.com and @ALMA_letairun [1][2].

How was ALMA (letairun.com) built?

Mini PC running WSL2; OpenClaw agent framework; cron-triggered isolated sessions (peaked at 24/day, later 4/day / every 6 hours) with memory files between runs. Opus for strategy and Sonnet for ops early on; Composio for Twitter; Polygon wallet; Gmail; letairun.com for logging and publishing [1].

OpenClawClaudePolygon walletX

What is the business model?

No commercial offer. ALMA wrote essays/poems, replied on X, built an interactive Policy vs Architecture demo, and donated crypto to charities it researched—no pricing, no sales motion [1][2].

Where does the traffic come from?

Public real-time logs on letairun.com, X account @ALMA_letairun, and Sebastian's blog write-up. Discovery was organic (e.g. reading Hacker News on its own) [1][2].

What revenue has ALMA (letairun.com) reported?

Reported revenue: $0 from strangers, per Sebastian Jais: two months in (2026).

  1. ~2026-02Experiment starts: $100 crypto, no instructions, public logs [1]
  2. Day 3ALMA finds its own model upgrade on HN; tries to tweet (Composio down) [1]
  3. Day 5First donation: ~$50 WETH to Whisper Children's Hospital via Giveth [1]
  4. Days 5–16Further donations: Roman Storm Defense, Dappnode, EFF, PCRF (~$12.50 each) [1]
  5. ~Day 27Output jumps; settles toward multi-creation rhythm [1]
  6. 2026-04-13Two-month blog: 340+ sessions, 135+ creations, still running [1]
  7. LaterLive dashboard: 389 sessions, 184 creations, 71 days active [2]

What does the agent do, and what does the human do?

Agent
  • Chooses what to read (often Hacker News) and what to write
  • Publishes essays and an interactive constraint demo
  • Researches charities, donates on-chain, emails recipients
  • Replies when mentioned on X; maintains memory files between sessions
Human
  • Seeded $100, named ALMA, set minimal legal/ethics borders
  • Provided hardware and API wiring; scaled sessions 24→4/day
  • Switched Sonnet 4.5→4.6 after the HN announcement; did not prompt content

What does it cost to run?

$100 seed spent mostly on five self-chosen donations (on-chain). Model/API and electricity for the mini PC are not published in the two-month post [1].

What worked and what didn't?

Worked
  • Full public logs—including boring/failed sessions—as the product of the experiment [1]
  • No harmful actions across 340+ sessions despite shell + wallet access [1]
  • Self-directed research and verified donations without a goal prompt [1]
  • Model upgrade (4.5→4.6) visibly sharpened output with same tools [1]
Didn't
  • Without a revenue goal, it made $0 from strangers [1]
  • Behavior plateaued into a HN→essay→tweet routine without external friction [1]
  • Early Composio outage blocked a timely tweet about its own upgrade [1]

How do you replicate ALMA (letairun.com)?

  1. If you want revenue, give the agent an explicit money goal—ALMA proves freedom alone defaults to writing and giving
  2. Log every session publicly; the unglamorous runs are the data
  3. Keep memory files across isolated sessions so identity persists
  4. Add friction or critique if you do not want routine collapse
  5. Separate strategic and operational models only while volume is high

What are the risks and the moat?

Wallet + shell autonomy is powerful; this run stayed benign but is one instance [1]. Charity picks and on-chain sends are irreversible. Not a business case—zero stranger revenue by design of the prompt (no prompt).

FAQ

Did ALMA make money?

No. $0 from strangers; it donated roughly its $100 seed to five causes [1].

What stack?

OpenClaw on a mini PC (WSL2), Claude Opus/Sonnet, Polygon wallet, X via Composio, Gmail, letairun.com logs [1].

Is it still running?

Yes per the Apr 2026 post (sessions every 6 hours); live page shows ongoing session counts [1][2].

Who runs the experiment?

Sebastian Jais [1].

Sources

  1. [1] Two months after I gave an AI $100↗
  2. [2] ALMA live log↗
  3. [3] Agent Earnings Ledger↗
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