Ipê News #18 - Ipê Village 2026 tickets are live
Your weekly update on what is happening in the Startup Society ecosystem.
Hey builders!
Welcome to our 18th edition of the Ipê News.
Ipê Village 2026 is around the corner, so join our Discord Server to be part of the community.
🏘️ Community Updates
Highlights from Ipê City, partner communities, or aligned initiatives.
Tickets for Ipê Village 2026 are live, with a fresh website look showcasing the program. Here is what you can expect in April 2026, for a bigger, bolder, and more ambitious Ipê Village.
The Startup Cities Live will pause for the holidays, but you can still watch the ones you missed, and in particular, the latest one with Ivan Maltsev, where he describes his journey with Solana and his vision for the future of nomadism.
Our next Town Hall will be on January 2, 2026. The last one covered updates from p2p.me with their new p2p.foundation, as well as an introduction to bonfires.ai, sharing ideas about what can be implemented at Ipê Village 2026.
🏫 Learning section
A learning segment to upskill and be able to build the tools of the future.
We saw that a wallet can be your identity. But how does it work? Simply put, it’s a pair of cryptographic keys: the public key you share to receive funds, the private key you never share and use to sign transactions. A hot wallet stores your private key on your computer, whereas a cold wallet stores the key in a device.
Most DAOs share a wallet, either with a multisig (multiple signatures) or MPC (Multi-Party Computation, the key is split into numerous shards). With many upgrades to Account Abstraction, wallets are getting smarter, allowing for recurring payments or social recovery.
To get started on Ethereum, try Metamask and then create a Gnosis Safe for multisig. To try on Solana, best to use Phantom and TotalSig to create a multisig. As for a user-friendly MPC experience, try Zengo, the leading MPC wallet. Make sure the citizens of your network state understand their daily tools.
🌐 Network Societies Update
A quick pulse on emerging cities, nomad groups, and experiments shaping the future of network societies.
Forma, the entity behind the Solana Economic Zones, previously showed that they could partner with governments to push blockchain adoption.
In Kazakhstan, they signed an MOU to explore public listings on Solana, helped with a national stablecoin, and supported the creation of a National Crypto Reserve and a Crypto City.
At Breakpoint 2025, they announced their new permanent location on the Isle of Man, a favourable jurisdiction in the middle of the UK. The Forma team will move there and transform the island into a new model for crypto communities.
⚖️ Governance Tools
Exploring mechanisms for coordination, decision-making, and digital governance.
Aave is the leading lending protocol in DeFi, governed by a DAO using the $AAVE token. Recently coming out of a four-year SEC investigation, the project is projecting its best years ahead, with $75B in net deposits and $900M in revenue in 2025.
So what’s the recent drama? Aave Labs, the primary development team, recently integrated CowSwap for swapping on Aave, and a DAO member realized the collected fees go to a wallet controlled by Aave Labs, costing the DAO $200k a week.
Previously, fees like Paraswap fees were sent directly to the DAO, so the unannounced and unvoted decision stirred conflicts, with the DAO now discussing reclaiming things like the Aave brand from Aave Labs.
🛠️ Web3 Tools
Tech shaping decentralized living, finance, and identity.
Coinbase just announced the launch of its Custom Stablecoins during their “System Update” event, enabling any business to issue a fully backed stablecoin using USDC.
The service will allow businesses to use their own branding, with cross-chain support and revenue sharing. 3 companies are already using it, and we can expect many more to follow.
The token is basically an ERC-20, delegating all the complexity to Coinbase and sharing generated yields. It’s a major step forward to allow global distribution for small businesses, without worrying about security or regulatory issues.
🌍 Other Interesting News
Broader movements and stories from the frontier of digital-first governance and societies.
Destiny is a Special Economic Zone proposal in southern Nevis, Caribbeans, a self-governing island within the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis. The project proposes the development of eco-luxury residential spaces with geothermal energy as part of its sustainability strategy.
However, public discussion has already emerged locally regarding transparency and the level of community consultation. The bad press quickly expanded on this and conflated it with other network state projects, even without a direct link.
Misinformation spreads faster than factual reality, so the situation highlights the importance of clear communication, early stakeholder engagement, and publicly addressing questions when developing new governance models.
💡 Join Ipê Village
Ipê Village 2026 will be our next large-scale experiment exploring the future of communities, cities, and governance. Hosted in Florianópolis, Brazil, in April 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.