The "continual funding" problem I'm talking about is a short-term one, not a long-term one.  If you got $7M in donations, you'd be able to back at $1...  Which won't have an appreciable effect on the market.  If you get $30M, you'll have a credible backing at about 50% of market cap.  It'll boost confidence a fair bit.  Then the market trades up to $25.  At that point, your backing has become essentially irrelevant again, but it's still way too early for BC to be considered a stable, established currency.  So what do you do?  Either your bot remains irrelevant, or you have to seek out more donations.  And it'll take a whole lot of these cycles before BC becomes so established that it's no longer necessary.