Edge City Patagonia 2025: Month in Review

We’d love to hear how Edge City Patagonia impacted your personal or professional life. Please fill out this short form to share your experience!

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From Oct 18 to Nov 15, we lived and built together in San Martín de los Andes, a lakeside town in the Argentine Andes that became home to our second full-scale popup village of 2025. Hundreds of builders, artists, researchers, and thinkers joined Edge City Patagonia to explore new forms of collaboration and human flourishing. 

The month brought together experiments with benevolent AI agents, research into consciousness and wellbeing, onchain reputation and payment tools, and a wide mix of d/acc projects - a collaborative container for accelerating frontier work at the intersection of tech, science, art, and culture.

This recap looks back at what we created together.

By the Numbers

• 600+ tickets sold across the month (91 participants from Argentina)
• 150+ local Patagonian participants
• 62 kids (including 50 local kids engaged weekly)
• 72 countries represented
• 11 thematic residencies
• 25 community-led experiments
• 100+ projects presented during the demo days
• 700+ sessions and co-created events 

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Numbers only tell half the story

We’d love to hear how Edge City impacted your life, whether it sparked you to build something epic or simply shifted something in your daily rhythm.

‍Share your story with us by filling out this short form →

Residency Highlights

Edge City Patagonia marked the first time we anchored the popup village around residencies: groups formed around specific themes, with some choosing to co-live to deepen collaborations and friendships.

Here are some highlights from the 11 residencies we hosted:

Over a dozen builders in Lisk’s Emerging Markets Residency leveled up their startups while tackling real-world challenges across Latin America and Africa, creating local impact and supporting emerging economies. Thanks to Santiago Trujillo Zuluaga for leading this residency. 

The Argentina Onchain Residency, led by Lovisa Björna, Sofía Cossar, and Ori Shimony produced nine prototypes directly shaped by the needs of local public officials and civic actors. Instead of building for a crypto-native world, the teams created tools that embed decentralization into existing institutions and governance structures. A few local councils will run pilots.

The d/acc Residency, hosted by Protocol Labs and run by Sasha Zakharova, spent the month building toward a future anchored in decentralized, democratic, defensible, and differential technologies. Residents worked on projects spanning pathogen detection, DAO governance, onchain collective intelligence, Sybil-resistant token allocation, privacy-preserving financial proofs, cultural protocols, meaning-driven marketplaces, and more. Their weekly demo days (week 1, week 2, week 3, week 4) offer a full look at all the projects.

With its open and decentralized structure, the Consciousness Residency led by Madison Richmond has been hosting a full program of activities and experiments throughout the month including:

✨ morning yoga and breathwork 
✨ group discussions and workshops on vasocomputation
✨ sound baths, cacao ceremonies, and ecstatic dances
✨ scientific explorations of how music can shift states of consciousness
✨ experimental research into synchronicity and remote viewing
✨ PsyDAO’s Psychedelic Week featured a citizen study on gut microbiomes, nature immersions, workshops, talks, and documentary screenings

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The Vibe Coding Residency turned their house into a hub for workshops, coworking, hangouts, and asado dinners. Residency leads Mariella Torres and Jack Mielke made a beautiful effort to include local kids and parents, even running a demo day for the kids who learned to vibe code. They organized demo days across the month and closed things out with a 3-day buildathon featuring $5,000 in rewards.

‍Agartha House was a monthlong residency designed as a creativity incubator and the first coliving experiment in its mission to build a network of Solarpunk communities. Led by Nico Shi and Jeremy Dela Rosa, residents explored benevolent AI agents for personal guidance, built new startups and creative projects, offered free business & life coaching sessions, and brought the Edge community together for a daytime Halloween celebration.

The Meditation Artifacts Residency was a coliving experience centered around daily meditation and cold plunges, followed by focused project work. Residency leads Luca Del Deo and Charlotte McAdams also organized talks and workshops, including one exploring telepathy.

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The Regen Haus Residency explored regenerative models, local ecosystems, governance mechanisms, and bioregional collaboration. Organized by Francisco Tunez, Gabriel Calvo, and Ana Paula Pujador, residents colived together and could join yoga sessions in the garden. Co-created activities included guided field trips, asado dinners, campfire evenings, talks & group discussions, and a screening of an animated solarpunk film from Argentine with local students.  

The Cypherpunk Utopia Residency, led by Steve Phillips, centered around building tools for privacy, anonymity, censorship resistance and freedom. Highlights include a hackathon with Canary, sessions on privacy preserving AI systems, and a demo day where participants showcased their projects.  

Founded by Olly Kovalieva, The Oz City brought together builders for a network-state popup city centered around AI and web3. The residency featured cacao ceremonies, coworking sessions, community hikes, as well as d/acc breakfasts with conversations on decentralized identity and AI-powered systems. Speakers shared insights on reputation systems, data accounting, AI agent swarms, and new ways of prompting.

The human.tech Residency, led by Angelica Vidal, reimagined how technology can serve human flourishing rather than extract from it. Grounded in d/acc principles, residents worked on projects across digital identity, reputation, governance, and cultural currencies. Their collaborative sessions aimed to embed democratic values at the core of these emerging tools.

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Experimenting with a residency model at Edge City Patagonia added richness to the village, giving builders space to go deep while still being part of a wider community. For those not part of a residency, it was easy to join sessions and activities. 

None of it would have been possible without the residency leads who put in the energy to host and co-create. We’re deeply thankful for their effort.

Additional Programs

We hosted a new cohort of the Edge City Fellowship, our program for talented builders under 25. Rucha, Rhea, Brian, Akshaya, and Maxwell worked on their projects throughout the month. A full blog post with more details and project highlights is coming soon. 

The Video Creator Residency, organized by Mariella Torres, brought four storytellers to the village to document the month. Big thanks to Jeffrey, Vana, Jake, and Lou for joining us and creating such beautiful videos. 

The Ethereum Foundation’s Protocol Team joined us for multi-day interop activation with 30+ builders working on 7 different projects. The coworking sessions helped move the Open Intents Framework (OIF) forward and shaped the next steps in Ethereum’s interop roadmap.

Community Life and Experiments

Alongside all the building and collaboration, Edge City Patagonia invited participants into full-spectrum living. We partnered with local businesses to make it easy to keep a gym routine or try new forms of movement. Participants co-created group runs, acro-yoga workshops, padel sessions, and swing dance classes. 

Many people used their weekends to explore the beautiful region including trips to Chili, an expedition to the top of volcano Lanín, and drives along the Seven Lakes route.

There were also various community-driven experiments throughout the month:

• World App and paying with stablecoins became everyday tools for buying coffees and meals around town.
• The Murmur Experiment offered daily pomodoro sessions in the coworking hub
• Participants in the Health & Bio program tracked biometric data and explored wellbeing through the Balance & Breath challenge
• Several matchmaking experiments to help people connect
• Paul and Erika led a 7-day Gnosis experiment of movement, breathwork, and music that drew a full room each morning
• Cait Chizmar’s social-battery experiment and wellbeing initiatives opened up conversations about people’s energy levels and how to recharge

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Highlights from Village Life

✨ Stargazing evening
‍✨ Several people recorded a podcast (incl Timour’s conversation with Artu Grande and Logos) 
✨ A full day of Halloween celebrations
✨ Watching the sunset at the lake
✨ Daily community dinners
✨ Weekly volleyball tournament
✨ Movie nights and open mic evenings
✨ Countless coffees in cozy cafés, meeting up and making new friends
✨ A woman’s dinner with fresh, healthy food
✨ Weekend adventures to Chile
✨ Five-a-side football tournament
✨ Daily sauna sessions, with a special closing evening at a spa in the mountains
✨ Trips to Bariloche, driving or hitchhiking on one of Patagonia’s most scenic routes
✨ A guided trip to hike up Lanín Volcano 
✨ Excursions to learn more about local flora and fauna
✨ Hikes to beautiful viewing points and lakeside beaches
✨ A closing ceremony overlooking Lake Lolog
✨ And much much more!

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We’d love to hear your highlights from Edge City Patagonia. Post your story on Twitter or Instagram and tag @JoinEdgeCity so we can share it with the community.

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Local Impact & Collaboration

Edge City Patagonia was a true co-creation with the community of San Martín de los Andes, built with the intention of forming lasting relationships.

We collaborated closely with BIT Cotesma and Le Village Hotel for coworking and venue spaces, partnered with Del Sauco for sauna and spa facilities, worked alongside awesome volunteers and the rest of the operational crew, and welcomed city officials as well as policymakers from Argentina and Chile.

Local cafés, businesses, guest speakers, kids & parents, and founders naturally integrated into the village and the rest of the participants.

We also hosted weekly Local Demo Days with Patagonia Labs, a new local incubator spinning out of BIT Cotesma, where more than 20 Patagonian founders pitched their projects to the global Edge community-and two even received initial funding commitments.

And the day before the closing ceremony, Regen Haus hosted a screening of an Argentine documentary with local students, further deepening the cultural exchange.

With hundreds of participants in town during the shoulder season, our popup village generated a meaningful wave of activity and revenue for the local economy.

What Was Built

Our popup villages are spaces for frontier ideas. A monthlong container where new technologies are built and culture is prototyped through art and community. More than 100 projects were presented across four demo days, a testament to how much was built.

Here are some highlights of what participants worked on during the month:

• Ethereum Foundation’s Protocol Team hosted an interop activation for several days where 30+ builders collaborated on seven distinct projects
• Through the Lisk Emerging Markets Founder Residency, more than a dozen founders received guidance to advance their startups to the next stage
• Vibe Coding Residency’s 3-day buildathon resulted in 10+ demos from participants
• Several PhD candidates ran research experiments in the consciousness space, from Viviana Caro’ deep listening sessions to Axel Delamarre’s experiments in remote viewing 
• We built a mini app for World with a village map, community gratitude features, and more
• PsyDAO conducted a three-phase study linking gut microbiome shifts with psychedelic experiences
• Tugce Taschi ran a synchronicity experiment, mapping the village’s collective unconscious with support from Bonfire’s AI tools
• Cait Chizmar field-tested her prosocial projects in the village, a social battery pin and decode bracelet, to create gentle openings for new conversations and collaborations
• The Cypherpunk Utopia Residency ran a hackathon with Canary aimed at building a fully decentralized failsafe for safely releasing critical information
• At the end of week 1, Romi fully committed to co-founding and building Unlloo Protocol 
• Nico Shi and Jeremy Dela Rosa refined the vision for Agartha’s future and pitched to several VCs
• Builders in the d/acc Residency worked on a wide range of projects: DAO governance, onchain collective intelligence, pathogen detection, Sybil-resistant token allocation, a two-sided marketplace to increase human meaning, and more.
• Kat Banas ran a cultural currency experiment to deepen community bonds and prototype new systems for trust & reputation 
• Chloe Huang built the next iteration of Cashmere, a cultural protocol to capture and expand human taste
• The Argentina Onchain Residency produced nine prototypes built for the needs of local public officials and civic actors
• Kofi Owusu advanced work on Cr3dentials, a privacy-preserving system for financial data verification

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Community Reflections

A number of partners and community members have shared their experiences from Edge City Patagonia.

Read their reflections here:

✨ Lisk’s blog post about the residency
✨ human.tech’s blog post about the residency
✨ Tiny on Twitter
✨ Devansh on Twitter
✨ Lucho on Twitter
✨ Gisela on LinkedIn
✨ Radiyya on LinkedIn 
✨ Lindsay on LinkedIn 
✨ Viviana on Instagram
✨ Nicole’s blog ‘what comes after nation states’

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Quotes

‍“Life changing experience! Everyone needs to experience it at least once in their lifetime.” - Ike Orizu

‍“Came to @JoinEdgeCity to learn about IRL events but ended up learning something more important: the power of genuine human connection. There's something special when the right people align around shared purpose.” - Barb

‍“This retreat in Patagonia with the mates from @protocollabs, @JoinEdgeCity, @crecimientoar has by far been the most inspiring of the year.” - Santi Siri

‍“Edge City is such a fascinating experiment in community building. The spontaneous connections that happen there are exactly what our ecosystem needs.” - Noelle Iqbal 

‍“It’s interesting to see how hundreds of people from around the world come together to actually live, build, and co-create something real @JoinEdgeCity. There’s a certain magic in watching ideas turn into communities.” - Sam

‍"@JoinEdgeCity if you want to have the perfect balance between working, enjoying nature and having a great time with incredible people" - Matute 

Stay Tuned for 2026

Edge City Patagonia was a living experiment in co-creation. A month of building, learning, and sharing life with others at the frontier of tech and culture. We’ve seen how this proximity accelerates ideas and deepens collaboration, moving us closer to a society rooted in human flourishing.

Thank you so much for being part of this! 🙏

Stay in the loop by following us on Twitter and Instagram for updates on our 2026 popup villages. 

– The Edge City Patagonia Team ☀️ 

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PS: Edge Esmeralda returns May 30 – June 27, 2026. Pre-register here →