I've also been a contributor to Gitea, but it's not time yet to call the banners.
I don't think this announcement was handled particularly well, but nonetheless, I think it's an important development for gitea to grow and become sustainable.
Specifically, Gitea is in desperate need of full-time maintainers (and probably a part-time project manager), and I see this as an essential step to creating the necessary governance for that.
I remain cautiously optimistic and would encourage everyone who is passionate about the project to raise their concerns and wishes in a constructive way. Another fork would be a disaster for the entire ecosystem and I think should only happen if there really are SIGNIFICANTLY diverging interests in the project.
I also haven't heard anything in the gitea threads about crypto, so I think they're just referring to bounties and other distributed payments.