Reimagining FWB: A Visual Evolution for Our Growing Ecosystem

It’s been five years since our founding, when scenes of globally distributed, opinionated creative technologists converged around a shared ideal for $FWB. We were instigated at a time when both financial and cultural capital were abundant, especially for those of us building on emerging crypto rails. 

Diversifying our treasury early on allowed us to dream big during a time of global existential crisis, when the world was still thawing from quarantine. What started as a "big group chat with a shared bank account" has transformed into what's been called "a new kind of social network" and even a "distributed virtual city." A rare place to imagine things bigger than anything possible in so-called web2.

Through the years of internal transitions against the backdrop of industry volatility, accelerating emerging technology and deepening cultural uncertainty, FWB remains an internet-native third space where creatives, culturalists and technologists across the globe converge as one. 

Today, we're previewing an evolution for FWB—a new visual system that mirrors a progressing structural transformation of how we organize, collaborate and create opportunities for our community and the broader ecosystem. You’ll see this take shape in the visual identities for our forthcoming token migration, new member programs like $FWB Academy and a refreshed membership offering called Friends With Builders, soft-launching soon. 

Why now?

We’re instigating this next phase of FWB by aligning our brand expression with our movement beyond our crypto beginnings and into the broader expanse of emerging tech–both software and hardware. We believe the creative technologists building, designing and theorizing cultural and creative applications of emerging technologies arethe most valuable visionaries in our increasingly speculative future.

Beyond Aesthetics, A Structural Transformation

Our community has evolved from an experiment in decentralized collaboration to a global ecosystem that spans digital and physical spaces. Our milestones include: 

• In 2021, we pioneered new territory for DAOs when we closed our round from the leading crypto venture firms. 

• In 2022, we threw our inaugural FWB FEST, bringing all our internet friends together in Idyllwild, CA and launched our Event Keys program which has facilitated 250+ member led decentralized events around the world in over 40 countries.

• In 2023, we set the stage for the next phase of DAOs through forming the novel Unincorporated Nonprofit Association around our 5,500+ FWB members. 

• In 2024, we spun-out our product studio–Scene Infrastructure Company–making us one of the first DAOs to own a significant stake in a technology company. 

• In 2025, we’re supporting the rapid growth of our ecosystem in developing cultural applications of emerging technologies through World Build and bringing FWB FEST to life for the fourth time.

Rather than changing for change's sake, this visual architecture responds to our growth from a token-gated experiment to a platform for broader technological and cultural inquiry. From our friends at Props Supply, who developed the refreshed brand system: 

The new identity maintains our recognizable, felt DNA while introducing new elements that can flex across our growing ecosystem. Our updated brand system provides a foundational visual language for FWB to continue pushing at the edges of culture and technology with purpose.

Initiating… Friendship

This announcement is just the start. We’re temporarily pausing new membership applications for a beat. But if you’re interested in joining, drop us a line here and you’ll be the first to know when applications reopen ahead of FEST25. We’re redefining both our membership process and accompanying benefits to align with our community’s evolution during a time of accelerating technology and global uncertainty. While dark-mode pessimism is rampant—not unlike the macro environment at the time of our founding—we’re taking the optimistic path. Our revamped membership offering will better reflect our commitment to our original promise of building cool sh*t with our friends. 

Until then, see you at FEST25 🫂

FEST25 is back July 31–August 3

“We are living through a syzygy: a celestial alignment of technical systems and symbolic structures, of oracles and errors, of datasets and dreams.”