From Florianópolis, Rooted: notes from the other pop-up city (Ipê City)

Between April and May 2025, together with AgroforestDAO and Erik Miki, we co-created a 30-day ReGen Track in Ipê City (Florianópolis, Brazil). It was a living lab to explore and prove new ways of living, producing, and governing: hands in the soil, code in the cloud, community at the center. I’m here to share what we planted—both in the ground and in the collective imagination—from my personal experience as franz.

Why I went — and what I hoped to find

I came to Floripa looking for something simple and hard at once: clear signals that technology, territory, and community can weave together to regenerate ecosystems and social fabric—without hitting the same old glass ceiling. We’ve talked for years about networked societies; I wanted to feel them moving, with mud on our boots and prototypes on the table.

Ipê City from the inside

Ipê City felt like an ephemeral city with a forest’s soul: ReGen Haus as our home base (coliving, coworking, and testbed), satellite nodes between UFSC and the coast, and a diverse, international, highly talented human mesh. The logic was cosmolocal: open solutions, bioregional roots, and distributed governance. In that frame, the question wasn’t “if?” but “how do we build this together?”

Thirty days, twelve moments

1. ReGen Haus Kickoff — April 23, 37 people
   Welcome circle with prompts on decentralization and regeneration, communal BBQ, and first run of the Impact Miner App.
2. Reconnection in Rooted Network Societies (AgroforestDAO) — May 1, 15 people
   A talk inviting cosmolocal alliances around agro-ecosystems.
3. Agroforestry Field Visit (UFSC) — May 12, 13 people
   Sensory immersion in syntropic agroecology (SAF CambuCÁ), connected with Web3 values.
4. ReGen Day: Regenerative Governance — May 6, 31 people
   Talks + workshops on Allo IRL, QF, RetroPGF; opened with a collective poem and closed with a regenerative happy hour.
5. Movie Night: Zeitgeist Addendum — May 12, ~20 people
   Community screening and discussion on post-capitalist economics and decentralized futures.
6. ReGen Prototyping (NetX State) — 3 sessions, 53 people total
   Goal: design the Regenerative Governance Protocol Architecture (collaborative doc).
   • May 8 (15) • May 14 (20) • May 21 (18)
7. Rooted Ventures (AgroforestDAO) — 4 sessions, 40 people total
   Goal: rooted ventures and partnerships for regenerative agroforestry economies.
   • May 8 (12) • May 13 (11) • May 15 (7) • May 20 (10)
8. Tapioca Workshop — May 13, 11 people
   Regenerative cooking: cassava processing, ferments, and ancestral connection.
9. Regen Bioregion Hike — May 18, 4 people
   Hike to a sacred archeological site; deep territorial and spiritual connection.
10. Planting Session & Seed Swap — May 20, 9 people
    Syntropic planting and seed exchange at the UFSC agroforest.
11. Ipê Tree Ceremony — TBD
    Symbolic planting of two native ipê trees next to Founder Haus.
12. ReGen Haus Closing Party — May 23, 25 people
    Choripán, music, and a celebration of a month of living prototyping.

‍

What we learned

• Parallel institutions, real people. There’s a globally minded, highly skilled citizenry building new rules of the game from the ground up.
• Mycelium and mushrooms. If Web3 and network states are a techno-human mycelium taking shape, pop-up cities are the mushrooms sprouting to signal a new ecosystem in motion.
• Regeneration starts within. Neighbors in Ipê said it—and lived it: daily practice + spiritual dimension = sustainable coherence.
• Bridges between soil and chain. ReFi and modular governance can support agroforestry, local logistics, and measurable impact without losing place-based roots.

Weaving ties and alliances

This activation expanded NetX State beyond the physical into the digital and widened our Latin American focus. We wove honest, strategic links with AgroforestDAO, Ipê, Founder Haus, Weever/Valocracy, Lit Collective, and Tools for the Commons. With them, we’re already designing more conscious regeneration actions across territories.

What’s next

See you at the next Regen Hubs we’ll co-create in Argentina:

• Edge City — San Martín de los Andes (October 15, 2025)
• Devconnect — Buenos Aires (November 17, 2025)

We’ll keep iterating the regenerative governance architecture, launching pilots, and making sure interoperability isn’t just a slogan: data, capital, identity, mobility, and learning connected across nodes.

Quick metrics

• Activities: 12
• Participants (Luma-recorded): 258
• Main hub: ReGen Haus — coliving, coworking, and experimentation lab
• Themes: ReFi, regeneration, agroforestry, decentralized governance

An invitation to builders

If you feel another way of coordination is possible, come along. Bring your hands, your craft, and your questions. The legal, territorial, and digital tools are here; the next step is to meet, organize, and plant together. In Ipê City we saw it clearly: when the map turns into road, the forest answers.

—franz 🌿

‍