Hello 2026! Introducing Creativity Incubators
Incubating a paradigm shift, one residency at a time
Happy New Year my lovely humans!
Greetings from New England, it’s freezing up here! 🥶
Enjoy this curated playlist for my 2025 dance music bangers:
Pop-ups are only the Beginning
Why do people travel across the world to live together for a month?
The reasons vary: to try new things, see new places. For a lot of us, it’s to intentionally be with a specific flavor of community, the kind that want to live in constant growth, and create innovations that change the world, together.
Maybe you’ve felt it too, maybe you were building your dreams isolated in your bedrooms, something you believe the world needs, and nobody else around you understand it. They tell you it’s too risky, it’s irrelevant, it’s impossible, maybe it’s shooting at an idea they’ve long given up for.
My friends are either unaware (of the situation), or depressed (from the status quo)…
And then there’s you guys!
Said Antonio, founder of El Pantano and The Impossible Future, after an invigorating exchange meeting other builders of the Ethereum ecosystem post Devconnect in Argentina.
We’re on this journey because we seek others that share the same values. We are curious about the world, curious about its problems, and we want the right space, the right team to explore solutions.
From Vitalik’s new essay Let a Thousand Societies Bloom, pop-ups are beyond just a gathering, they are creating the essential social fabric —— communal bond, trust, love and kinship —— that are crucial foundation for new societies to form.
I see this as a 4-step process:
Pop-ups: temporary containers long enough for deep bonds and new cultures to form, but short enough for a small team to quickly execute.
A New Ecosystem: a global network of innovators connected through various pop-ups, building interoperable projects with shared world views.
Network of Hubs: permanent physical spaces for new ecosystems (people, projects, culture) as home bases
New Cities: physical hubs expanding to cities with full sovereignty
Popups are the bootstrap phase. A 1–2 month stay is enough to create a “social imaginary” and build ties strong enough that people actually care about one another. This essay is a reminder that we need to just go for it. We have to try things that are novel and high-stakes to avoid becoming just another coworking space. — @timourxyz
Our Culture
Culture is the ultimate coordination tool, a starting point for communities of new ideologies and lifestyles.
From world events like the Olympics, to religious holidays like Christmas and the Lunar New Year, to global brands like Nike and Starbucks… all of which have created massive communities around a common symbol, common thread of a compelling culture.
For 2026, we have planned a plethora of offerings to create the Agartha culture, from art, designs, merch, to games, webapps, residencies and conference activations…
It’s about Solarpunk lifestyles, Lunarpunk ideas, mystical lores, and ALIENS. We broadcast messages about practical solutions to improve our lives and our world, but we would spice it up with funky art.
We want to create a culture of belonging for people that are BOTH open minded, caring, compassionate, ‘spiritual’, AND technical, solutions oriented, high-agency with a growth mindset.
The Lingering Memories of Patagonia 🇦🇷
The best way to embody a culture is to live it.
The essence of our first co-living residency in Patagonia is quickly captured here:
Vibe wise, it was the perfect mini prototype for the future village we all want to co-create.
The Agartha Village is starting to become real in memetic form. It’s a long term dream of ours and for now, we’re only prototyping it one month at a time.
Some fun Alien art created by Julie Nguyen with our technical partner Eden.
Key Focus In 2026: Creativity Incubators
The house in Patagonia turned us to a big family, many left with unforgettable life experiences, and want to come back for more.
We realized the magic came from 2 very simple ingredients: great people and Solarpunk spaces, they are the secret sauce to creating magical experiences.
Beyond creating deep friendships and a cozy home, the Patagonia house planted seeds for long term collaborations.
Many of our residents have stayed in touch: new teams are forming, interoperable tech-stacks are being discussed, cross-pollination are naturally emerging, and people are excited to meet again.
We are noticing the potential of a new ecosystem, multi-cultural, multi-disciplinary, vision aligned builders getting together to co-live in a home designed for work-life balance, psychological safety and creative inspirations.
This was only our first attempt, what if we keep doing it? We can’t even predict with full clarity on what comes out of it, we just know it’ll be EPIC, and there’s only one way to find out!
Looking forward in 2026, we’d like to double down in more residencies as Creativity Incubators for high agency, compassionate people to produce world-changing innovations.
The residencies are catalysts of a long-term collaborative ecosystem where:
Technology is “Deshittified“, moving from extractive models to open-source, privacy-preserving, and decentralized tools that “can’t be evil” by design.
Creativity is redefined, creators have the most enriched, inspired, and relaxed environment to connect with their deepest passion, and create their best work
Common goal is aligned, where the next innovative frontier isn’t a single enterprise, but a mycelium network of projects with shared ideologies and interoperable tech stacks
Yes, it’s only the beginning ;)
2026 Timeline (work in progress)
Our Flagship Creativity Incubators
We are aiming to host 4 month-long residencies as Creativity Incubators. A lot of plans are still in flux, we’ll be finalizing the plans in the next few weeks, but here are the general directions:
📍 Q1 + Q2 Portugal — Fool’s Valley & TDF
📍 Q3 U.S. — Edge Esmeralda (California) & Catskills, NY (Starting a working group)
Maybe something in Argentina at El Pantano?
Maybe something in Thailand at Amagi?
📍 Q4 Asia — India, Bhutan or SEA (before Devcon 2026)
Featured Pop-ups
Some of the most note-worthy pop-ups of 2026 (from our partner network):
Proof-of-Retreats, Vietnam - This project is started by some friends of ours in the ecosystem, seems very interesting and well put together, recommend checking it out.
Foresight Vision Weekend, Puerto Rico — There will be a traveling neighborhood style community happening in February, most of them staying at Casa Chironja, I (Nico) will be giving a speech at the Vision Weekend and hanging out in the neighborhood afterwards.
Mu China | April 26 - May 23 - A first-of-its-kind pop-up city in Hangzhou, China, bringing a global startup ecosystem to China. This is one of my most expected events of 2026. As a Chinese immigrant well aware of the impact of a closed ‘firewall’, I am personally the most excited about this one!
Edge Esmeralda | May 30 - June 27 — We’ll likely be hosting something at Edge Esmeralda, if you’re interested in co-creating or participating, please reach out!
Crecimiento, Argentina | TBD — We know this team has moved to a new location and have a few pop-ups planned for the year, not sure when, but they are awesome, stay tuned.
Ethereum Ecosystem Events
Events that we & friends of our network will be going to:
ETHBoulder | Feb 13-15 (Gitcoin people are behind it so expect it to be quite Regen x Solarpunk focus)
Parallel Society, Lisbon | March 6-7 (2 day festival / unconference)
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
I can’t wait to meet more of you in 2026, build, experience, learn, and share this incredible journey together. I hope you’re flourishing during the holidays, wherever you are, whoever you’re with!
By being in love with life, you’re already making a difference. 💕
We are actively recruiting residents for our upcoming adventures, feel free to reach out if any of this calls to you. 😁💙
the eden pictures take me back to patagonia with everyone 🥹