Cooperatives: The Revolutionary Solution for Compliant Ownership in Web3

Credit unions, rural utilities, insurance companies, and agriculture producers often organize as cooperatives. Web3 companies may want to consider adding cooperatives to their ownership structures, which could boost participation and reduce regulatory risk, while giving users more control of the digital networks they use and a share of the value they create.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has consistently declined to classify cooperative memberships as securities, enabling cooperatives to distribute ownership to users quickly and easily, while also offering important protections to their members. Giving users ownership through cooperatives may also provide builders and investors a better return on investment than if they shared ownership with users through tokens alone because cooperative structures reward users in proportion to their participation and consistently may provide a stronger incentive than tokens for users to engage with and strengthen digital networks.

Cooperatives provide a groundbreaking framework for addressing the complex ownership issues in the web3 space. By incorporating cooperatives into their ownership models, web3 projects can increase participation, reduce regulatory risk, and give users a greater sense of control and ownership of the digital networks they use.

The benefits of using cooperatives in web3 projects are clear: they align incentives, amplify growth, and provide a compliant solution for distributed ownership. If you are interested in using this model for your web3 project, Upside.coop will take care of the heavy lifting, so you can focus on your people. Don't let your most valuable asset, ownership, go underutilized.

Read a January 2023 report prepared by KPMG LLP and other contributors that discusses the use of cooperatives in cases where existing models of granting ownership may fall short.