In November, 2017, Joe Ricketts, the millionaire owner of various local news outlets around the country, shut them all down—just a week after the employees of one site voted to join a union.

But now, from the ashes of one of those local news outlets—DNAinfo Chicago—a new non-profit neighborhood news website with the same mission has emerged. And it’s powered by blockchain technology.

“DNAinfo was onto something; I think we proved that with the audience we built over such a short period of time,” s…