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Inside a cavernous 1930s-era warehouse on the northern edge of Brooklyn, the ancient and all-but-extinct art of stone carving is having a 21st century rebirth. This is the new headquarters of Monumental Labs, a quirky but audacious startup that is combining the meticulous chisel-and-hammer craft of stone carving with the prowess, speed, and efficiency of robotics and artificial intelligence. Using an $8 million round of venture capital funding, the 2-year-old company is turning this aging warehouse into a modern stonecutting factory capable of quickly producing highly detailed decorative facades, museum-grade marble sculptures, and towering stone monuments. And if founder Micah Springut gets his way, the company will soon be trying its robotic arms at an even grander project: reinventing the way buildings get built. [Photo: Monumental Labs] Walking through the warehouse on a recent day, Springut shows off the 30-foot-high ceilings of the main fabrication floor, where more than a dozen seven-axis robotic carving arms will soon be chipping away at massive blocks of granite, limestone, and marble, turning them into towering sculptures and statues. When the 37,000-square-foot facility comes online in the fall, Monumental Labs will begin fine-tuning its stone carving process to quickly and affordably produce structural stone that can be used to build everything from private homes to multi-level apartment complexes. [Photo: Monumental Labs] It will be a big step up from the space Monumental Labs currently leases outside of New York City. That’s where the company produced its first significant projects, including restorations of decorative stone adorning Carnegie Hall and the Frick Museum, which are mostly cut by robots and then hand-finished by trained stone carvers. It’s a process that can cut delivery times for sculptures and decorative facade treatments from months to weeks. But in its current location, Monumental Labs has only been able to deploy two robots, and its monument carving capacity tops out at 12 feet. [Photo: Monumental Labs] “We can’t do an entire facade, we can’t do an entire building, we can’t do a monumental arch,” Springut says of the existing workshop. Behind him in the new factory, SUV-sized slabs of marble sit idly by, waiting for the robotic arms to be installed and activated. “All of that kind of stuff, large-scale works, both public and private, could be done here now,” he says. The new factory space and capacity is made possible by the $8 million funding round, which was led by Seven Seven Six, Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian’s venture capital fund. Founding partner Katelin Holloway, who led the deal with Monumental Labs, says the company offers a perfect blend of technology and humanity. “They’re bringing craftsmanship back to architecture,” she says. “This technology has massive potential to transform how we build cities, bringing back that artistic magic we almost lost.” [Photo: Monumental Labs] Springut says the new space will help the company keep up with growing demand. It’s currently working on several large-scale sculpture projects for private clients, decorative stone facades, and a set of gargoyles that will be added to a new building at an undisclosed university in the South. The big goal, though, is getting into structural stone. These are giant, Lego-like blocks of stone that are precisely cut to form thick and strong building bases and walls. With a lower embodied carbon footprint and a much longer lifespan than concrete, structural stone is seen as an environmentally friendly alternative construction method. It’s also one humans have relied on for millennia. “We basically built with stone for all of history until about 110 years ago when industrialization came and changed what became efficient to build with,” says Springut. “The cost of fabricating stone, cutting it, and shaping it into the form you want became far, far more expensive than doing that with concrete.” Robotics and automation, he says, will dramatically lower that down to as little as 25% of the cost of building with concrete. [Photo: Monumental Labs] The future of structural stone Andrew Lane can’t wait. He’s an attorney and prospective developer based in Austin who has become obsessed with the idea of using structural stone to develop new buildingspartly out of frustration with the aesthetics of modern buildings and partly because stone buildings have such longevity. Standing on his balcony in downtown Austin, he pans his phone’s camera from the Renaissance revival-style Texas Capitol Building to the new glass-and-steel office and residential towers a few blocks south. “America could rise, America could fall, that capitol building ain’t going anywhere. That office building right there, that glass, that’s gone in 70 years, max,” he says. “I just don’t understand why we want to build cities like that.” He’s hoping to change course by building townhouses or apartments in Austin using stone carved by Monumental Labs, but is waiting to learn more about exactly how much it will cost. Springut says that’s still an open question. Monumental Labs has other developer clients who are eager to get started, but everyone first wants to see what the company can produce with its new fabrication space. That’s why one of the first projects Monumental Labs will work on once its new facility is up and running is a 30-foot-tall observation tower built out of structural stone and constructed right in the corner of its main fabrication hall. Springut says that should be enough to get some of these developer clients to commit to building. “We’ve got a number of clients who are just ready for us to be ready,” he says. There’s still plenty that’s needed before Monumental Labs is actually ready, though. The biggest hurdle is refining the technology behind its stone cutting ambitions, and training its own AI systems to handle the now largely manual process of understanding the cutting paths and the tool heads needed to turn a multiton chunk of limestone into the building blocks of a townhome. [Photo: Monumental Labs] “We’ll be using reinforcement learning to effectively come up with the optimal toolpaths to see a 3D model, and based on the curvature and the geometric forms, to choose what are the right tools, or what are the right angles of attack,” Springut says. “And when we do that, that’s what’s going to bring the cost of fabricating stone down by 80% to 90%.” The company’s proprietary software, he says, will learn from every carving project its robots undertake, getting better over time. This new facility will be part of building that institutional knowledge, using its new fleet of robots to crank out up to 100 life-sized sculptures per year, and possibly a few full-sized buildings. But that will have to wait until the robots can actually move into the building. First, Springut says, the 1930s-era complex needs some upgrades, including a reinforced foundation capable of handling the weight of the stones to be carved. Before Monumental Labs can revolutionize the world of building, it’ll have to bring its own headquarters into the 21st century.
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E-Commerce
Earlier today, the price of Bitcoin passed the $120,000 milestone for the first time, marking a dramatic rise for the world’s most popular cryptocurrency over the last three months. But it’s not just mainstream tokens that are enjoying a rally this week. So-called meme coins, including Shiba Inu, Elon Musk favorite Dogecoin, and President Trump’s own Trump Coin, have also seen their value increase in recent days. Here are some of the latest figures from crypto price tracker CoinMarketCap: Pepecoin (PEP) Up 24.31 in 7 days Dogecoin (DOGE): Up 20.73% in 7 days Shiba Inu (SHIB): Up 17.19% in 7 days Official Trump (TRUMP) Up 12.52% in 7 days This is in addition to stock price increases for companies that are crypto adjacent, such as Coinbase, whose shares are up 47.98% over the last month. Why are crypto prices rising? Cryptocurrencies can be highly volatile and tend to fluctuate with broader market conditions, so it’s not always easy to tell what is driving any particular rally. However, one clear reason why crypto tokens may be up this week is that Congress is set to debate and possibly vote on a various key pieces of legislation that are seen as advancing Trump’s crypto-friendly agenda. As Bloomberg reports, the actions are being dubbed “Crypto Week.” The legislation includes the Senate’s GENIUS Act, which would create a regulatory framework for a dollar-pegged stablecoin. It also includes the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025aka the Clarity Actwhich aims to create a framework for digital assets more broadly. Potential crypto-related movement on Capitol Hill comes in addition to growing institutional demand for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, as Fast Company reported last week. Add it all up and you have a lot of enthusiasm at the moment for Bitcoin and its fellow cryptocurrencies all the way down the chain. At the same time, it’s important to keep in mind that we’ve been here before. In late 2021, Bitcoin was riding high on what was then a record price, somewhere just north of $64,000. It came crashing down in the wake of numerous crypto scandals and the ensuing “Crypto Winter” of 2022. It took more than two years to recover.
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E-Commerce
The crypto industry will take a step closer to going mainstream this week as a series of industry-friendly bills progress through Congress, paving the way for digital assets to potentially be further integrated into traditional finance. The House of Representatives is set to pass a series of crypto-related bills in a week which the Republican majority has dubbed “crypto week.” The most notable is a bill that would establish a regulatory framework for stablecoins and is likely to advance to President Donald Trump’s desk. That billand another the House is considering that would define when a crypto token is a commodityis a huge win for the crypto industry, which has been pushing for federal legislation for years and poured money into last year’s elections in order to promote pro-crypto candidates. “Historically, when lawmakers advance industry-backed frameworks, institutional sentiment strengthens. We expect capital that was previously sidelined due to regulatory uncertainty to re-enter,” said Jag Kooner, head of derivatives at crypto exchange Bitfinex. “Crypto week” also comes as bitcoin has scaled record highs in recent days as investors dive back into risk assets on the back of tariff-related news, as well as expectations that legislation could potentially unlock capital in the crypto space. The big ticket item the House is set to vote on this week is a bill that would create a set of federal requirements for stablecoins. Stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a constant value, usually a 1:1 dollar peg, are commonly used by crypto traders to move funds between tokens. Their use has grown rapidly in recent years, and proponents say they could be used to send payments instantly. The bill, dubbed the GENIUS Act, received bipartisan support in the Senate, with several Democrats joining most Republicans to back the proposed federal rules. It is expected to pass the House and would then head to Trump, who has said he will sign it into law. The bill would require tokens to be backed by liquid assetssuch as U.S. dollars and short-term Treasury billsand for issuers to disclose publicly the composition of their reserves on a monthly basis. Crypto proponents say those rules could legitimize stablecoins, making banks, retailers and consumers more comfortable with using them to transfer funds. Ahead of the bill’s final passage, many companies across sectors are already considering how they might incorporate stablecoins into their business, said Julia Demidova, head of digital currencies product and strategy at FIS, a financial technology solutions provider. “I think everyone is realizing, look, this is moving forward and they need to have a stablecoin strategy,” she said. “They need to think how banks themselves will position against some of these novel, new, emerging fintech-issued stablecoins as well.” Still, many Democrats have argued that the GENIUS Act would not prevent big tech companies from issuing their own private stablecoins, and have called for stronger anti-money laundering protections and prohibitions on foreign stablecoin issuers. Many Democrats fiercely oppose both the GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act, arguing that they have too few consumer protections and would be a giveaway to Trump’s own personal crypto ventures by enabling softer-touch regulation. Democratic members are expected to offer several amendments to both the GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act on the House floor next week, according to a source familiar with the matter, but it is unclear whether any of them will be considered. The House will also vote next week on a bill that would prohibit the U.S. from issuing a central bank digital currency, which Republicans say violate Americans’ privacy. The bill has not been considered in the Senate and the Federal Reserve has not indicated a desire to develop a central bank digital currency. MARKET STRUCTURE The House this week is also expected to pass a bill that aims to develop a regulatory regime for cryptocurrencies and would expand the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s oversight of the digital asset industry and is backed by the industry. If signed into law, the bill would define when a cryptocurrency is a security or a commodity and clarify the Securities and Exchange Commission’s jurisdiction over the sector, something crypto companies heavily disputed during the Biden administration. That could help crypto companies avoid the oversight of the SEC, which under the Biden administration sued a number of crypto exchanges for flouting its rules. Crypto companies have argued that most crypto tokens should be classified as commodities, rather than securities, which would enable platforms to more easily offer those tokens to their customers. That bill, called the CLARITY Act, has yet to be considered in the Senate, where it would need to pass before heading to Trump for final approval. Trump has sought to overhaul U.S. cryptocurrency policies after courting cash from the industry during his presidential campaign. The sector spent more than $119 million backing pro-crypto congressional candidates in last year’s elections. Trump’s crypto ventures include a meme coin called $TRUMP, launched in January, and a business called World Liberty Financial, a crypto company owned partly by the president. The White House has said there are no conflicts of interest and that Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children. Hannah Lang, Reuters
Category:
E-Commerce
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