Community Ownership and Crypto (DAOs, Web3, DeFi) in 30 Days
Decentralized Ownership from Coast to Coast
By Cate Fox, Ambitio US Program Director
In late February 2025, Angie Kim, Center for Cultural Innovation President & CEO, and I (the Ambitio US Program Director) attended an intimate convening of funders focused on shared ownership in Berkeley, California, held by the Center for Community Investment . This gathering was the culmination of a year-long landscape scan that included a thorough literature review, interviews with individuals involved in various facets of shared and community ownership work, and site visits.
The two-day gathering brought together funders committed to community ownership and control of real estate as a tool for preventing displacement, preserving affordability, and building community wealth. Over two days, those of us attending analyzed the community ownership landscape, discussed our experiences in funding community-ownership efforts, explored external forces shaping the field, and discussed philanthropy’s role in advancing this work. When we discussed the work that is supported through Ambitio US , we shared what grantees have told us about the value of culturally-rooted community ownership efforts, which extend beyond financial well-being towards creating a broader sense of belonging and agency. It was wonderful to spend some time with colleagues from across the country who believe in the power of community ownership and governance of shared assets.
Just a couple of weeks later in mid-March, Angie and I journeyed to New York City for Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit , billed as “Crypto’s premiere institutional conference.” If that sounds to you like a whiplash experience, that is what it felt like for us.
For years, we have been showing up and educating ourselves on Web3, decentralized finance (defi as it is more commonly known in these circles), decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), and, yes, crypto, because artists (and particularly artists of color, especially Black artists) have migrated over to explore marketplaces without gatekeeping structures. Traditionally, structures like museums, record labels, galleries, and theaters have served as funnels, providing some artists with broad access to build their own artistic brands, sell work, and grow audiences while shutting out others. The still largely unrealized promise of decentralized finance is that artists are unencumbered by the middle structures and they can share their art directly with audiences, grow and engage those audiences in new ways, all the while generating and receiving a greater percentage of their revenues. That is the dream, anyway. You can read more about why we are skeptical about this approach in a Next City article, “If Web3 is the Future, Who Will Get to Build it? ”
This is another emerging economic system, so each year we attend at least one conference to learn about new developments, challenges, the policy environment, who is building what kinds of technology things, gauge what the field finds exciting, and to see if the mainstage, which tends to be a perch for the privileged class, has more and different kinds of perspectives to offer. We were particularly interested in this meeting as it was the first Web3 convening we would be attending post-President Trump’s inauguration. To say that the conference center was buzzing would be an understatement. Here were our topline takeaways:
With the new federal administration, the United States government went from crypto skeptic (often a person who doubts or denies the value, viability, or usefulness of crypto and related industries) to crypto booster (a person who enthusiastically endorses crypto and related industries) overnight.
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and traditional financial institutions (TradFi) are converging, which means that if you have money in a managed retirement account, you are probably holding some Web3 and/or Web3 company shares, or if you are banked at a large, national financial institution, they are likely invested in the Web3 marketplace in some way.
Widespread adoption of crypto and blockchain still has not happened, in part because they have yet to solve a real-world problem in a visible way.
The fact that traditional finance has invested so deeply into crypto and the blockchain means that elements of it will likely infiltrate our lives (and are probably already infiltrating our lives as I type this). Artificial Intelligence and blockchain technology are already transforming our financial system and replicating many of the same problems present in our current systems (with an even worse effect on the environment). DeFi has some really interesting (and potentially more cooperative) ideas embedded in it, but right now the industry is focused on power and profit-building. Our team is scheduled to head to another Web3 conference in June, so we will have more to share then!
This article was originally published on Medium. Read it on Medium →
