IntroductionIn 2021, a collective of internet strangers raised $40 million in a week to buy a rare copy of the U.S. Constitution. They called themselves ConstitutionDAO. They didn’t win the Sotheby’s auction — a billionaire outbid them — but they proved something bigger: strangers armed with crypto wallets and Discord servers could organize faster than legacy institutions. That moment crystallized a shift that had been brewing for years. Online communities were no longer just message boards o...

IntroductionIn 2021, a collective of internet strangers raised $40 million in a week to buy a rare copy of the U.S. Constitution. They called themselves ConstitutionDAO. They didn’t win the Sotheby’s auction — a billionaire outbid them — but they proved something bigger: strangers armed with crypto wallets and Discord servers could organize faster than legacy institutions. That moment crystallized a shift that had been brewing for years. Online communities were no longer just message boards o...