Ipê News #13 - The Healthcare Blindspot, DePIN, Bitcoin Justice Protocol, and more.
Your weekly update on what is happening in the Startup Society ecosystem.
Hey builders!
Welcome to our 13th edition of the Ipê News.
As the Ipê Village 2026 gets closer, we would love to know your opinion on the newsletter and the community. Join our Discord Server.
🏘️ Community Updates
Highlights from Ipê City, partner communities, or aligned initiatives.
After over six months in the making, the second episode of The Network Society documentary is finally out!
Why are healthcare systems around the world collapsing? Is it a lack of innovation? A gap in talent or funding? The real issue lies deeper, hidden in a blind spot almost no one talks about. The Healthcare Blindspot is a story about injustice, power, and a new frontier of hope.
Watch it on X or on YouTube,
If you are new to the newsletter, episode 1 is worth watching first.
ETH Floripa was designed to offer a checkpoint between ETH Latam and Devconnect, structured more like a builder’s retreat than a formal conference. Day 1 was about Ethereum's past and present, and Day 2 was about the future of Ethereum, with a crowd hand-picked by the local web3 community.
The result: a highly aligned community discussing deep topics around Ethereum and DAOs, workshops around the pool about governance and d/Acc, and human connections during yoga sessions and volleyball games. Foreigners discovered the Brazilian barbecue, first-timers enjoyed the web3 DJs, all between a lagoon and a surf competition on the beach.
Florianopolis is already a hub for nomads and web3 in Brazil, and it won’t stop there. If you want a chance to meet this amazing community, connect with them at Devconnect, or join us at Ipê Village 2026.
🏫 Learning section
A learning segment to upskill and be able to build the tools of the future.
An important piece of web3-based societies that often gets forgotten is the hardware infrastructure. DePIN decentralizes the operation of physical infrastructure by incentivizing operators with token rewards, powering global on-chain data capture, and feeding back into the tokenomics flywheel.
We can distinguish two main types of DePIN projects: the software ones, offering decentralized storage, internet bandwidth, AI compute, etc., and the hardware ones, telecom, solar, noise, weather, or cameras, always measuring to provide a global network of data to a marketplace in high demand.
Some argue that allowing everyone to run paid infrastructure could allow for a Universal Basic Compute, a sort of UBI based on minimal maintenance of potentially AI compute (AGI?). For a list of the best projects, head to Who Loves Burrito (don’t ask us why), and you can easily buy a piece of hardware that pays you back. BTW, the next DePIN day is today.
🌐 Network Societies Update
A quick pulse on emerging cities, nomad groups, and experiments shaping the future of network societies.
The justice protocol
Kleros is a decentralized justice protocol built on multiple blockchains designed to provide fair dispute resolution. Guaranteeing the enforcement of contracts by solving disputes is the backbone of any society, so can it be decentralized? Let’s see.
Kleros resolves disputes by randomly selecting jurors from a decentralized pool. Jurors stake $PNK to participate, review evidence, and vote on outcomes. The ones who vote with the majority receive rewards, while incoherent voters lose stake. For years, it has been a process focused on smart contract arbitration, but now Argentina is bringing them to serve as an impartial Customer Defender.
This week at Devconnect will be our opportunity to test their version 2, using Proof of Humanity v2, understanding new products like Kleros Scout and Kleros Curate, and meet their customers like Lemon Cash.
⚖️ Governance Tools
Exploring mechanisms for coordination, decision-making, and digital governance.
We previously covered futarchy as a rising decision-making strategy, so it’s great to see the first futarchy vote on Snapshot happening right now. Kleros, the justice protocol, also called a decentralized arbitration service for disputes, is running a proposal to further decentralize its DAO by selling its native token, PNK, to the Kleros Cooperative.
The proposal is a hard one; it requires the Snapshot vote to be approved, the futarchy test to demonstrate a positive price impact, and the General Assembly of the Cooperative to approve the transaction. The futarchy experiment is run by futarchy.fi, bringing decision-making through the wisdom of the markets.
The approach had a lot of traction recently, aiming to solve participation and incentives in DAOs. Will this change the way societies make decisions and allow everyone to bet on their beliefs? Track the first experiment now: you can follow the bets in real-time.
🛠️ Web3 Tools
Tech shaping decentralized living, finance, and identity.
We know smart contracts can enforce law programmatically, but did you know some real contracts have been using Bitcoin as collateral? That’s the work from the Private Law Society, providing contracts with enforcement through financial incentives, an initiative from Brazil.
BTC is used as collateral, arbitrators are selected to resolve potential conflicts, and the contract runs on Nostr. The collateral is redeemed when either both parties agree that the contract was fulfilled, or when one party and the arbitrators agree. The project is still developing in public, and you can join the community to participate.
You can try their MVP live, follow their tutorial on video, or check this real use case of a marriage contract running on BTC collateral.
🌍 Other Interesting News
Broader movements and stories from the frontier of digital-first governance and societies.
We regularly cover popup cities from the Zuzalu movement, or just the big ones like Infinita or Edge City. But there are less famous ones. For example, The Mu has been quiet for a while but is now back with MuHangZhou, a month-long popup city in China, April/May 2026. As always, you can expect builders in AI, blockchain, longevity, but also robotics, drones, and art.
If you’ve never heard of Hangzhou, you probably know Alibaba, Deepseek, or Unitree robotics. It’s where some of the most impactful companies are building, in the Alibaba Cloud Valley Campus. Read more on their official post.
Want to know more about why all these experiments matter? Listen to a detailed explanation by the CEO of Prospera on How Do You Build a New Singapore? Inside Próspera’s Bet on Private Governance.
💡 Join Ipê Village II
Ipê Village 2026 will be our next large-scale experiment exploring the future of communities, cities, and governance. Hosted in Florianópolis, Brazil, in March 2026, this pop-up city is open to founders, builders, creators, and techno-optimists.
Follow the journey and join the community on Twitter or Discord.