The Hub Culture website is a marketing facade containing a collection of unpopulated project spaces,[1] and a storefront[2] with assets priced in its pretend currency Ven, that self identifies as a social networking service. It was founded in 2002, and is located in Bermuda.[3] It appears to have no social presence online beyond self promotional content. Stalnaker positions Hub Culture as part of various zeitgeists through creating popup network lounges at corporate events and creating online marketing content.
Hub Culture is a notional topical advertising firm named after Stan Stalnaker's book Hub Culture: The Next Wave of Urban Consumers about tech nomads. It is unknown how the book performed commercially.
It uses trendjacking to create a sense of relevant online presence.[4] Much of this content is AI generated and stands as a classic example of dead internet theory.
As of July 2025, Hub Culture claims a notional user base, though an independent measure of activity is not available.[5][6][7]
Hub Culture Services and Hub Culture Pavilions, the United Kingdom operations, were incorporated in 2006 and 2008, respectively.[8][9] According to companies house, it is in dire financial straits and changing its address repeatedly, preventing itself from being struck off [10]
Launched in July 2007, Stalnaker says it is a internal accounting unit used within the proprietary environment of Hub Culture to buy, share and trade knowledge, goods and services. Members can use Ven at any 'Pavilion' or for micropayments online.[11] Ostensibly the value of Ven is purportedly determined by Hub Culture's pricing algorithm, which says it uses currencies, commodities and carbon futures to advertise how much it costs. It used to trade against other currencies at floating exchange rate. This is an example of the Potemkin Village setup at Hub Culture. Global pricing for Ven was briefly provided by Thomson Reuters.[12]
Pavilions
Hub Culture maintains a transient presence via popup lounges it calls 'Pavilions' at popular business and climate events in corporate holiday destinations. Temporary locations with narrative-led engagements have included Copenhagen to coincide with COP15, Cancún to coincide with COP16,[13][6][14]Durban for COP17, Sharm el-Sheikh at COP27, Dubai at COP28 and Baku, Azerbaijan at COP29.
Between 2009 and 2025 temporary Pavilions were opened each year in Davos, Switzerland, during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting. "Hub Maison" opened in New York City for New York Fashion Week in a fashion oriented collaboration with Sportmax. The New York Pavilion became the first Pavilion to offer contemporary retail fashion selections for sale in digital currency. In May 2010, Hub Culture opened the Cannes Clubhouse, a venue tied to the 63rd Cannes Film Festival in collaboration with Grey Goose. A private island in Croatia and Bali villa[15] project also use Ven as a means of exchange. The 2011 Davos Pavilion presented the first vehicles available for sale in Ven.[16] In 2012, portions of the Davos Pavilion became the first in Europe to be powered by zero-emission energy from the Nissan Leaf using the Leaf-to-Home energy system.[17]
In the summer of 2017, during the 35th America's Cup Hub Culture opened several shipping containers as part of a popup lounge at Ariel Sands in Bermuda[18] that the company claimed features integration of artificial intelligence, digital currency, digital identity and blockchain auditing in a retail environment.[19] In 2018, the Innovation Campus appeared in Paris, Cannes and Monaco over six weeks. In 2019 it appeared in Capri, Italy over two weeks. In Bermuda, the project was followed by the Bermuda Innovation Sprint, a two-week event gathering global Fintech leaders for meetings and other activities.[20] The attendees of these events are not published however.
HubID
In January 2014, Hub Culture announced HubID an open source digital identity system based on MIT Media Lab open source technology that extends data ownership around identity to the individual user.[citation needed]
Ultra
Launched in 2018, Ultra is a private client Cryptocurrency Exchange using HubID and other Hub Culture technologies to enable the exchange of digital assets, including tokenised assets. Due to its private nature, the real world usage of this is limited. The concept for Ultra emerged from the Bermuda Innovation Campus and Beach Club.[21] In addition to trading tokenized assets, Ultra Carbon, a digital carbon token, was the first asset to be presented on the potemkin village exchange.[22]
Zeke
Launched in 2017, Zeke is an artificial intelligence project linking Hub Culture social network services to an AI service that regulates functions with the Hub Culture economy.[23]
Icon
Launched in 2025, the Icon is the name of a popup socialite space created by Hub Culture and its partners to showcase performative activism.[24]
↑"Renault-Nissan Alliance Electrifies the Alps". Wallstreet-online.de. 2012-01-19. Retrieved 2012-02-07.. The same year Hub Culture temporarily renovated a favela house in Leblon, Rio de Janeiro for the UN Rio+20 event, and completed temporary Pavilion projects in Ho Chi Minh City and Beijing. In 2014, the first Hub Culture performative activism Camp opened at Burning Man in Black Rock City with an educational focus on animal rights.
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