Ipê News #19 - HNY, Arc Montenegro, Human Network, Alpha school, and more
Your weekly update on what is happening in the Startup Society ecosystem.
Hey builders!
Welcome to our 19th edition of the Ipê News. Get ready for Ipê Village 2026
🏘️ Community Updates
Highlights from Ipê City, partner communities, or aligned initiatives.
Happy New Year for 2026!
Get ready for Ipê Village 2026 and make sure to book your tickets before the prices increase. Now only $400, the tickets will increase by $50 every 15 days from January 1st until April. For more information, check out our launch article.
Our next Town Hall is on Friday, January 16th, 10 am BRT. Join us to celebrate 2026 and learn what the community has been up to.
🏫 Learning section
A learning segment to upskill and be able to build the tools of the future.
In crypto, we hear a lot about Decentralized Finance, but what is it really? At its core, DeFi is about using smart contracts to replace banks. No intermediaries, fewer fees.
Decentralized exchanges (DEXs) allow you to provide liquidity, lend, and earn yield on your tokens. It’s a permissionless financial infrastructure, where you can earn from traders playing with the market and the perpification of everything. You can also use DeFi aggregators to find the best rate onchain.
As Network States start building their economies, allowing for loans is necessary, and protocols like Aave or Compound are the most battle-tested options for borrowing. For DEXs on Ethereum, Uniswap is the biggest, Jupiter is the most common on Solana, and 1inch is the most popular DeFi aggregator.
🌐 Network Societies Update
A quick pulse on emerging cities, nomad groups, and experiments shaping the future of network societies.
Ârc is a project for a charter city led by James of Ârc. It is currently running a community at the Network School, where he recently had a series of interviews about Network & City States.
On top of growing and promoting the Network School with a curated program, Ârc has an outpost in Prospera, and will very soon host a popup city for 2 months in Montenegro.
This one will happen in the same resort where Zuzalu happened 3 years ago, as a reference to what kickstarted the popup city movement. If you’re serious about building a Network Society, the Ârc programs are a good option to consider.
⚖️ Governance Tools
Exploring mechanisms for coordination, decision-making, and digital governance.
The Gitcoin Passport was renamed Human Passport, following its acquisition by the Holonym Foundation earlier this year. Together, they form the Human Network, upgrading the passport with zero-knowledge proof for enhanced privacy.
The foundation also offers a 2PC-MPC (two-party and multi-party computation) Human Wallet as a Protocol (WaaP), a free and decentralized wallet infrastructure for developers.
Social recovery and sybil resistance are some of the features the upcoming Network States will need in an open-source Proof of Personhood, and Holonym just made it available on Ethereum.
🛠️ Parallel Institutions
New institutions shaping decentralized education, healthcare, safety.
Alpha School is a private K-12 school with a new model, 2 Hour Learning: the kids learn the foundational subjects like math and reading for 2 hours in the morning, and use the rest of the time for experiential projects or life skills development.
Even though it started in 2016 with a software-first approach, it gained momentum with new AI tools, while adults in classrooms are referred to as “Guides” who mentor students rather than deliver traditional lectures.
The personalized system claims faster learning rates compared with traditional schooling, with many students reportedly performing in high national percentiles on standardized assessments. The small school that started in Texas is now expanding across the United States, highlighting the limitations of the traditional education system.
🌍 Other Interesting News
Broader movements and stories from the frontier of digital-first governance and societies.
💡 Join Ipê Village 2026
Ipê Village 2026 will be our next large-scale experiment exploring the future of communities, cities, and governance. Hosted in Florianópolis, Brazil, in March/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.