How Coinage Just Became the First US NFT Project to Establish a Path to Dividends

Coinage, the only Web3 media outlet that’s actually Web3, just also became the first U.S.-based Web3 media DAO to pay out a distribution to its NFT holders.

It’s a goal we’ve been building towards for more than two years, and as Coinage establishes itself as a leading Web3 media DAO, we hope that more will join us to see that NFTs can be so much more than just collectables.

The reality is we’ve learned a lot by establishing our DAO/Coop to let anyone own Coinage alongside the co-founder of Netflix, me, and up to nearly 6,000 others. And unlike memecoins or other non-ownership NFTs that set up a zero-sum game among holders, we believe the model we’ve landed on that allows us to pay patronage dividends back to members has become the best way for any community to align around a shared mission in Web3. After all, memecoins were only ever really meant to be a temporary workaround to prior regulatory failures by the SEC.

Today, as we pay out distributions of $250 and $571, respectively, to our active members in our two NFT membership tiers, Coinage is paving a new path forward for defining Read/Write/Own in Web3. As a result, the Coinage DAO is raising prices on the NFTs that allow you to become co-owners in what we’re building to 0.11 ETH and 1.1 ETH, respectively. As always, all proceeds go directly to the Coinage DAO.

Real ownership is here. And users in Web3 should accept nothing less. But to understand what comes next, maybe it's worth celebrating what we've already accomplished.

Where Coinage Started

Coinage launched in 2022 as an experiment to create the first community-owned media outlet that could level the playing field in crypto. We launched on the shoulders of DAO giants who came before us in their attempts at community ownership. In fact, it was actually Constitution DAO that opened my eyes to the power of building a community around a shared mission on the internet.

Constitution DAO had a funny goal: To buy a copy of the U.S. Constitution. More than 17,000 people from around the world raised more than $40 million to do so. And even though they eventually lost to billionaire Citadel CEO Ken Griffin during the Sotheby’s auction, they showed what could be possible when people come together in Web3.

Time and time again, history has shown what can be possible when a small group of people come together over a shared mission. In fact, I had a front-row seat the last time the little guys all banded together to take on Wall Street during the GameStop short squeeze in 2021. I interviewed Robinhood’s CEO about why the platform halted trading as retail traders finally won for once – and I interviewed former House Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry about his take on small investors showing such outsized force on the market.

“Power to the people,” he told me.

It became clear to me then that “the little guys” banding together in this era of the internet would unlock the most powerful communities ever. Back then, we were already seeing the early innings of that as DeFi democratized finance for the world and Bitcoin and Ethereum decentralized money. But then came Gary Gensler’s SEC, and suddenly things weren’t so easy. 

Crypto projects were hit with lawsuit after lawsuit, and entire NFT projects were shut down. Somehow the power that Web3 once offered the internet was warped into only allowing memecoins that were very clear about not offering any upside to anyone at all. The end result was that token launches got even less fair and the only way to make money became dumping tokens on other people in a zero-sum game.

As we watched that play out in 2022, we considered a different path. One that was both legally compliant, and also aligned interests among our NFT holders to build something together. As it turns out, this isn’t all that difficult. In fact, the legal structure to enable that in the U.S. has existed for years. They are called cooperatives, and have been popularized by camping store REI, cranberry juice giant Ocean Spray, and butter behemoth Land O’ Lakes. You might wonder what any of those have in common with a Web3 media outlet — and I wouldn’t fault you for that.

On the surface it might not make any sense, and admittedly, even as we enter year three of the Coinage experiment, I sometimes find myself having to re-ask the same question. But what we’ve uncovered is that there is no better structure to create something that is truly Web3. There is no better structure to create something that follows the ethos of what a DAO should be in the U.S. — or any structure, really, that would allow us to truly align our interests with those among our viewership who are coming to us to learn about crypto as we continue on our mission to build the most trusted media brand in crypto. Because as “trustless” as crypto technology may strive to be — we, as individuals in a society of people using, building, and interacting with this technology, must have some sort of consensus we can trust.

That used to be the media.

But if you listen to anyone talking about mainstream media today (especially Elon Musk) you would know that things are rapidly deteriorating. Trust in mainstream media is at an all-time low, as we highlighted when Coinage first launched. The latest data from Gallup indicates that is still the case, and I would argue that it’s not going to change — the model in news is broken because the optics are that it sets up a trade-off between objective fact and chasing clicks to sell ads. While it’s not necessarily that simple, outlets are often defenseless to defend against such allegations of bias, and so they are believed and trust is lost.

So what is a truth-seeking outlet to do? You could, in theory, accept to maybe be supported solely by a benevolent benefactor like The Washington Post did after Jeff Bezos bought the newspaper. But, things there recently got a little awkward after he stepped in to shut down a decades-long tradition of endorsing a candidate for President. Readership plummeted after the move, and editors resigned in protest. Crypto media has also unfortunately also learned this lesson. Without getting too deep into the specifics, a trio of CoinDesk editors were fired for refusing to retract a story after the VC firm that bought them requested they do so. You don’t need to be a journalist to know that is not good if you support the idea of holding truth to power.

Coinage was founded on the premise that a journalistic Web3 media outlet must be unwavering in serving truth and serving its readers above all else. We were also founded on the premise that no one person, or one team, or one newsroom could ever possibly be equipped to handle a space that moves as quickly or is as complicated as crypto. The only way to solve that problem is to create an open and infinite community that is aligned in our mission to objectively report the whole story in crypto.

Our solution was the same as it was when we were founded in 2022 as the Colorado-registered Coinage DAO/Cooperative. Anyone can join our cooperative by using a Coinage NFT to become a member, and active members can become eligible to unlock patronage dividends from the Coinage DAO/Cooperative. Today, Coinage made history by making its first distribution back to members.

Crypto as a space moves too quickly and is too complicated to trust any one source by itself, and anyone who dares to opine on any token or coin they might also own is immediately shouted down as a shiller. But as Coinage has seemingly proved, there is potentially a solution to solving the dilemma of trust in crypto — and the answer lies in why we’re all interested in Web3 in the first place: Permissionless ownership over a shared mission.

How Coinage Wins

When Coinage launched in 2022, we made a name for ourselves by publishing our first documentary into the collapse of Terra. We won a SABEW award alongside the New York Times and Bloomberg that year, but it was merely the start.

As Coinage began covering more stories that our members pitched, we saw the network effects beginning to work. Not only were our NFT holders keeping us informed, they were pitching guests and telling us what to watch out for. One Web3 founder who minted a Network Pass to become our highest level co-owner pointed out that he was surprised at how compelled he felt to let us in on announcements before anyone else.

In fact, it was that same motivation that brought one of our most powerful partnerships to our doorstep in 2024. Another Network member helped us seal the deal on spinning up our own validator arm in Coinage x DAIC.Through that partnership, which continues to grow, we now power validating services across 40 chains with nearly $400 million in assets staked with us.

Now, not only did we have the opportunity for our community to come together to learn and co-own Coinage's IP, we had a way for members to stake with Coinage and have those rewards flow back into our DAO to grow further.

Between that budding partnership, our growing distribution in publications like TheStreet, our X following growing at the fastest rate in a year after President Trump shared our reporting, and our YouTube channel closing in on 100,000 subscribers – it’s clear that the state of Coinage is strong.

But we need your help.

Coinage is battling for attention in a space that doesn’t necessarily always give the most attention to projects building for the long-term. We are only as powerful as our collective voice and we could always use more voices, perspectives, and members who want to experiment with us.

We have built up incredible brand power, and can now secure interviews with just about anyone in Web3. For example, for the second year in a row, we hosted all the top projects and their founders for our Crypto Project of the Year series. Our membership then voted via onchain Snapshot votes to advance a winner. Solana was that winner this year, but any project could take the crown in 2025. 

The point is, Coinage has built up significant brand power in the space as the only Web3 media outlet living by the ideals that make Web3 great. We have attracted nearly 7,000 mints from individual people (we have always limited one mint per-wallet, per IP address) and we hope we can fill our capped number of Caucus and Network co-owners this year as word spreads that minting a pass really does mean that anyone can co-own us.

We have never taken any outside money from VCs or anyone who might push us in any direction. As a DAO/Coop we have one mission: To serve our members. And with each mint, we grow stronger. We have more members joining our token-gated Telegram every day – and as we grow stronger, nearly every flywheel turns faster.

We matter because you matter. And certainly, if we all think the truth in crypto matters, then Coinage will remain essential for a long time to come.

If you’re already a Caucus or Network NFT holder, become an official member today and unlock the path to patronage dividends. If you haven’t yet joined the decentralized media revolution, it’s not too late. Mint today before prices rise again.

I can’t promise we ever become the next [insert your preferred publication here] — and maybe that’s the point. Because we’re the only one you can own. And we’re happy you’re here. Together, we’ll hold truth to power and have a little fun along the way.

E Pluribus Veritas,

Zack Guzman

Coinage Coop Steward