In case you missed it, I had my first podcast appearance on the Speakeasy Pod where I briefly discussed the cost of exit and touch on how someone might consider exit as a viable option. Below, some expanded thoughts on the four ways you exercise your “vote” everyday, and examining why the vote to exit itself, may not be enough.

On Change

In 1970, economist Albert O. Hirschman published Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, a slim book that reframed how we think about dissatisfaction. When a firm, an organization, or a state declines in quality, members have two basic responses: voice (agitate for change from within) or exit (leave). Loyalty, Hirschman argued, is what delays exit and gives voice its power.

It’s an elegant framework. But it’s incomplete. It treats human agency as binary. You either stay and speak, or go. Real life is messier. People don’t just talk or walk. They build, buy, boycott, riot, relocate. They exercise agency in overlapping, sometimes contradictory ways, often all at once.

What follows is an expansion. Not two levers but four. Every act of change, whether individual or collective, channels through one of four mechanisms: your ballot, your wallet, your hands, or your feet. Each has a logic, a failure mode, and a breaking point. Understanding the interplay between them is critical for anyone thinking seriously about governance, sovereignty, and the emerging landscape of network states and parallel societies.

We are sitting in the conditions that make all four votes salient: collapsing institutional trust, inflation, AI-driven labor disruption, and geopolitical fracture are converging simultaneously. If you’re reading this blog, there’s a decent chance you’re already weighing which vote to cast next.

Cracks in the System

Before examining the four votes, it’s worth naming what’s driving people to reconsider where they place their agency.

Trust in institutions is not just declining. It is structurally fracturing along generational and partisan lines. Pew’s September 2025 data shows that only 16% of Americans trust the federal government to do the right thing most of the time, down from 73% in 1958. Gallup’s 2025 confidence survey found that only three of eighteen tracked institutions: small business, the military, and science, still command majority confidence. Congress sits at roughly 10%. Television news is in the same range. Trust in mass media hit a new all-time low at 28% in 2025, a sharp drop of 40 percentage points since its 1972 peak of 68%.

These numbers reflect polling aggregates that cut across demographics. Among Americans aged 18 to 29, trust in media is below 28% regardless of party affiliation. That’s the generation entering peak civic and economic participation.

Layer on the rest: the Epstein files and the absence of meaningful prosecution. Education costs rising while outcomes stagnate. Courts overwhelmed with backlogs and uneven sentencing. Inflation eroding purchasing power in real terms. AI and robotics advancing faster than policy can adapt, with credible projections that automation could displace hundreds of millions of jobs globally by 2030. Taxation regimes like California’s rules on unsold equity (effectively taxing unrealized gains) driving founders out of the state and hollowing the startup ecosystem they helped build.

The cracks are not new. What’s new is their simultaneity, their visibility, and the shrinking faith that any existing mechanism can patch them.

Voting With Your Ballot

The ballot is the most legible form of political agency. Elections at the local, provincial, and federal level. Referenda. Recalls. It’s the mechanism most people think of when they hear “democracy.”

It also has serious structural limitations.

Democratic systems were designed at specific historical moments. The U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1788. Canada’s Confederation Act in 1867. These documents and the institutions they spawned were products of their era. Over time, they ossify. The distance between the rules as written and the world as lived grows wider. Amendment processes are slow. Institutional inertia compounds. Regulatory capture accelerates.

The irony is that the level of government most likely to affect your daily life, municipal and local, is the one most people engage with least. Studies consistently show that most citizens can’t name their local city councilor or school board representative, even though these officials determine zoning, policing, infrastructure, and education in your neighborhood.

Federal elections, meanwhile, absorb the lion’s share of public attention and emotional investment. Yet their outcomes increasingly reflect the preferences of organized lobbying blocs, donor networks, and party machinery rather than the diffuse preferences of individual voters. In a two-party system, the ballot becomes a forced choice between pre-selected options. The mechanism designed to express popular will, becomes the bottleneck that filters it.

None of this is secret. It’s structural. The question is what happens when enough people stop believing the ballot can produce meaningful change.

Voting With Your Wallet

Your wallet is the second vote. Every purchase, every investment, every boycott is a signal. Where you put your money is a statement about what you value, or at least, what you’re willing to fund.

Consumer boycotts are a visible example. The ongoing Canadian boycott of American goods in response to U.S. trade policy is a case study in wallet-based political expression: coordinated purchasing decisions intended to exert economic pressure on a sovereign government. “Buy local” movements worldwide share the same logic: redirect capital flows as a form of protest or affirmation.

But the wallet vote has constraints that limit its democratic potential.

First, the wallet vote is not equally distributed. A billionaire’s purchasing decisions carry exponentially more weight than a minimum-wage worker’s. When large enough pools of capital consolidate; be it through lobbying, campaign donations, or outright regulatory capture, the wallet vote becomes a tool of the few rather than the many. This is why campaign finance reform is perennially contentious. Money in politics can drown voices rather than amplify them.

Second, forced choices limit genuine expression. In markets dominated by oligopolies like Canada’s banking sector, its grocery duopoly (Loblaw and Empire dominate roughly 60% of market share), or the U.S. telecom cartel, consumers technically “choose” between options, but the range of those options is so narrow that the choice is barely meaningful. Voting with your wallet presumes a competitive market. Monopoly and oligopoly undermine that premise.

Third, inflation is the silent tax on your wallet’s voting power. If the currency you hold loses purchasing power faster than your income grows, your vote weakens every year. The only hedge is to hold assets that appreciate faster than the denominator, like equity, real estate, Bitcoin. However, each of these asset classes carry their own volatility and risk, and it ultimately leaves the individual feeling powerless because one feels they have to park their liquidity into risk on assets that might not reflect the risk tolerance, just to maintain purchasing power.

Additionally, access to those instruments is itself unevenly distributed, creating a feedback loop where the wallet vote becomes increasingly plutocratic over time.

There’s a crypto-native reframe here worth flagging. One of the core arguments for Bitcoin and decentralized finance is that they give individuals a wallet vote that cannot be inflated away by central banks or confiscated by governments. Whether that holds in practice (exchange hacks, regulatory seizure, volatility) is debatable, but the philosophical appeal is rooted in the same frustration: people want a wallet vote that actually counts. The illusion that buying the right products is a substitute for structural change just compounds on top of the losing power of the wallet vote.

Voting With Your Hands

Hands build, and hands destroy.

The constructive side is entrepreneurship, community organizing, grassroots institution-building. Starting a local business. Founding a cooperative. Launching a nonprofit. Building a charter city. Running a community garden. Coding an open-source protocol. These are all acts of creation that reshape micro and meso systems — neighborhoods, towns, and industries, all from the ground up.

The network state movement, charter cities like Próspera, digital cooperatives, cosmo-localist supply chains, regenerative agriculture collectives — these are all expressions of the hands vote. People dissatisfied with the existing system building something new rather than waiting for permission or reform. If the ballot is about influencing the system, and the wallet is about rewarding or punishing within it, the hands vote is about creating alternatives alongside it.

One framework worth mentioning here is cosmo-localism: the principle of "design global, manufacture local." Coined by researcher Wolfgang Sachs and developed further by researchers like Michel Bauwens, cosmo-localism argues that knowledge and design should flow freely across borders (the cosmo part) while physical production stays rooted in local communities using local materials and labor (the local part).

Think open-source hardware plans shared globally but fabricated in neighborhood makerspaces, or regenerative agriculture protocols developed collaboratively online and implemented by regional cooperatives. It's the hands vote scaled through networks: building locally while coordinating globally, without requiring permission from centralized supply chains or multinational gatekeepers. Early experiments include FarmHack (open-source farm tools), WikiHouse (open-source housing kits), and the broader Open Source Ecology project, which is developing a set of fifty industrial machines that can be built from scratch for a fraction of commercial cost.

The destructive side of voting with hands is also real and must be named honestly.

Protests. Riots. Revolutions. The toppling of governments. Guerrilla warfare. Domestic terrorism. When voice and exit fail, when the ballot is rigged, the wallet is captured, and the exits are blocked, people break, and they also sometimes break things. The logic isn’t always rational, fair, just, or even lead to a positive outcome. The American Revolution (1775-83) was a hands vote. So was the French Revolution (1789-99). So was the Arab Spring (2010). So was the January 6 Capitol breach (2021), and the Iranian protests movement (2025-26).

The Second Amendment in the United States is fundamentally a codification of the hands vote: the right of citizens to bear arms as a check on state power. Whether one agrees with its contemporary application, the underlying logic is Hirschmanian: if exit and voice both fail, the capacity for force is the last-resort check on institutional decline.

The hands vote occupies a morally complex space. On the constructive end, it produces cooperatives, startups, and regenerative communities. On the destructive end, it produces casualties and chaos. The boundary between legitimate protest and destructive violence is politically contested and historically contingent. What one era calls terrorism, the next may call a liberation movement. What matters for our purposes is the structural observation: when ballot, wallet, and the constructive hands all fail, the destructive hands become more likely. This is not advocacy of violence, but historical and human pattern recognition.

Voting With Your Feet

When you stop believing your ballot matters, when your wallet shrinks faster than it grows, when building locally hits a ceiling of bureaucracy and institutional resistance, and when you don’t want to break things, the remaining option is to leave.

Voting with your feet is the oldest form of political expression. Migration predates democracy, markets, and organized warfare. It is arguably the most fundamental act of sovereignty an individual can exercise, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes it explicitly in Article 13: “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country”. Any nation that is built by immigrants is, by definition, a nation comprised of emigrants. To arrive somewhere is the same as having left somewhere else. Mobility is thus not necessarily an ostracized activity, but a natural course of change as humanity carves its presence and builds a relationship to mother earth.

The feet vote encompasses the full spectrum of human movement: economic migration (skilled workers seeking better opportunities), family reunification, refugee and humanitarian flight, digital nomadism, expatriation, investment-based residency, currency arbitrage, sojourning, and temporary labor migration. The motivations vary but the underlying structure is consistent: the existing system no longer serves the individual, and a different system — or the possibility of building a new one elsewhere — becomes more attractive than reform.

The scale is significant and accelerating. The global digital nomad population has roughly doubled in five years, from approximately 20 million pre-pandemic to an estimated 40-60 million by 2025 (read my piece about digital nomads here). In the United States alone, MBO Partners’ 2025 report counts 18.5 million American digital nomads — a 153% increase since 2019, representing roughly 12% of the U.S. workforce. Over 70 countries now offer some form of dedicated digital nomad visa or remote worker residency permit, up from a handful in 2019. Estonia was the first mover in 2020; Spain, Portugal, Colombia, Thailand, and South Korea have since followed with their own programs.

This is less about lifestyle experimentation and more a structural shift in how talent, capital, and labor relate to geography. When high-earning, highly skilled workers can choose where to live and pay taxes, the competitive dynamics between nation-states change. Countries must now actively attract and retain talent. Not just through jobs, but through quality of life, regulatory environment, tax treatment, and digital infrastructure. The feet vote introduces market dynamics into governance and the early digital nomad boom in the 2010s was the first wave of such modern day structural flows.

Hirschman saw this clearly. In his analysis, the easier exit becomes, the less likely voice is. Latin American dictators, he noted, historically encouraged political opponents to self-exile; asylum as a “conspiracy in restraint of voice.” The lesson cuts both ways: exit can be liberating for the individual, but it can also serve as a pressure release valve that allows broken systems to persist.

If everyone who might organize for reform simply leaves, who stays to fix things?

The Cost of Exit

Voting with your feet sounds clean on paper. In practice, it’s the most personally expensive vote on the list.

Leaving means severing, or at least stretching ties to family, community, professional networks, cultural context, and often legal standing. It means navigating immigration bureaucracies that were not designed for a world of distributed work and fluid citizenship. It means learning new systems, sometimes new languages, and often new social norms.

The psychological costs are real too. Patriotism and national identity aren’t just propaganda; they’re deeply felt attachments forged through decades of shared experience, education, and social bonding. Choosing to exit requires a kind of emotional renegotiation: Why would I sacrifice for a government that doesn’t serve me? That’s not a question people ask lightly. It usually comes only after the social contract has already been broken from the other side: when the institutions that demanded loyalty failed to uphold their end of the bargain.

And exit doesn’t solve the systemic problems left behind. It often creates new ones. The Mexico City case is instructive. As digital nomads and remote workers, predominantly from the United States and Europe flooded neighborhoods like Roma Norte and Condesa after the pandemic, they brought spending power that outpaced local incomes. Rents rose. Local businesses were replaced by coworking spaces and vegan cafes. Anti-gentrification protests erupted in July 2025, with signs reading “Gringo go home” and “Death to Airbnb.” Between 2015 and 2020, the percentage of residents in affected neighborhoods reporting inadequate housing rose from 2.6% to 3.6%, while poverty and extreme poverty increased; a pattern that suggests the costs of gentrification fell disproportionately on those who couldn’t exit.

The lesson is critical for anyone in the network state and parallel society space: the receiving end matters as much as the exit itself. If exit creates enclaves of affluent newcomers that price out locals, it’s displacement rather than liberation. The systems designed to receive mobile talent: housing policy, immigration frameworks, integration infrastructure, and economic policy, are woefully underdeveloped. Most nations weren’t built for this kind of dynamic demand. And the ones that attract the most mobile capital often have the weakest protections for their existing residents.

This is the central design challenge for charter cities, network state experiments, and digital nomad hubs: how do you build communities that attract talent and capital without creating extractive dynamics? How do you scale without displacing? How do you maintain cultural coherence while remaining open? There are no proven answers yet, but the question is necessarily operational.

The Bridge That Doesn’t Yet Exist

The uncomfortable truth: the infrastructure for mass exit doesn’t exist.

Not enough has been invested in the immigration systems, housing pipelines, trade agreements, healthcare portability, or governance frameworks required to support large-scale voluntary (perhaps soon, involuntary) migration. A nation isn’t built overnight, and we are arguably entering a period where as Lenin has said “there are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen”.

Consider the convergence of pressures:

AI and labor disruption. The International Labour Organization estimates that generative AI could affect hundreds of millions of jobs globally, with white-collar knowledge work most immediately exposed. If Peter Thiel’s observation in Zero to One holds — that innovation has happened in bits faster than atoms, then software automation will eat white-collar work before robotics replaces blue-collar work. But the gap is narrowing. Once AI models mature in physical reasoning and embodiment, robotic labor becomes exponentially cheaper and more technically feasible to train and deploy.

Financial instability. Bank runs, currency crises, and asset seizures. These historical patterns recur during periods of institutional stress. Gold confiscation happened in the United States in 1933. Cyprus imposed emergency bank deposit levies in 2013. The possibility of similar measures during future crises, including crypto seizures or CBDC-enforced capital controls, is nonzero.

Universal Basic Income as a floor, not a ceiling. UBI experiments like Finland’s 2017-2018 trial showed modest positive effects on wellbeing and employment activity, but the payments were modest (€560/month) and the trial was limited. If automation-driven unemployment forces wider UBI adoption, the resulting standard of living is likely to be subsistence-level. Just enough to survive, not enough to thrive. Living on UBI alone is likely going to be a very barebones kind of life. “Escape the permanent underclass”, or whatever.

Geopolitical fracture. Ukraine. Iran. Taiwan. The post-Pax Americana world is not settling into a stable new order, but fragmenting into competing spheres of influence. For individuals caught in these fault lines, the feet vote is likely like a longterm vacation, and more like existential survival.

The nations and communities best positioned for what comes next will be the ones that build the bridge before the flood: proactive immigration policies, modular housing, flexible governance, economic integration infrastructure, mutual recognition of credentials and qualifications, portable healthcare, and digital-first civic services. Estonia’s e-Residency program is an early prototype. Some charter city experiments are attempting similar things. But the gap between what exists and what’s likely soon needed, is enormous.

Why Exit is Not Enough

Of the four votes, exit is the one that introduces the most systemic pressure. It forces competition between governance systems.

When talent, capital, and labor are mobile, governments must compete for them; not through propaganda or patriotic obligation, but through demonstrated quality of life, regulatory clarity, economic opportunity, and physical safety. This is the core thesis of the network state movement: that the ability to exit creates a market for governance, and markets, for all their flaws, tend to produce better outcomes than monopolies.

The right to exit is also the ultimate check on the other three votes. A ballot with no impact is a cage. A wallet trapped inside capital controls is a captive market. Hands that build but can’t relocate their creations are bound to a single jurisdiction’s whims.

Exit is what gives the other votes their teeth. But exit alone is not a solution.

It’s a catalyst.

If everyone who is disillusioned exits, the remaining population has even less voice, less talent, less capital to invest in reform. Brain drain is a real and documented phenomenon. Countries that hemorrhage skilled workers like Venezuela, Lebanon, and Zimbabwe don’t automatically improve because the dissatisfied left. They often spiral further. Exit without a functional destination is just displacement. And exit without voice, without the constructive feedback loop of people articulating what they need, produces enclaves without accountability.

The healthiest outcome in the market of governance is probably a dynamic equilibrium: systems where exit is possible (preserving individual sovereignty), voice is effective (preserving collective agency), hands have room to build (preserving innovation) and carefully destroy (reducing bureaucracy), and ballot voting produces actual accountability (preserving democratic legitimacy).

No existing system achieves all four simultaneously. Network state experiments are, at best, attempting to prototype something that does. The four votes are not a menu option, but a system of options to enact change. You might find yourself exercising any one of them at various points in your life.

Optionality is, after all, a hallmark of human agency and a foundation for individual and collective sovereignty.

Support the Blog:

• My guide: Decentralized Social Media 101: A Creator Flywheel. I’ve made a step-by-step guide with everything you need to set up and interoperate Farcaster, Paragraph, and Zora in one sitting.

• Collect this post as an NFT token here: $EXIT

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Made with ❤️ from us, by Wagmit, Cookie, Eric, & Michael (Parallel Citizen)

Hey reader! I’ve shared before that i’ve been busy working on stuff in the background. Below, I wanted to share the announcement and launch of Nodes Digest - a Substack digest publishing as part of nsnodes.com - a dashboard tracking network state experiments happening all around the world.

We just published the first Nodes Digest.

This is a new weekly roundup from the network-state ecosystem: projects, experiments, communities, and ideas pushing toward new ways of organizing society, both online and offline.

Parallel Citizen is where I’ll continue to write and explore deeper topics: essays, analyses, deep tech reviews, and reflections on what these experiments mean, where they’re headed, and how they might shape the future.

Nodes Digest serves as a signal-filter and coordination layer: a place to quickly scan what’s actually happening across the ecosystem, without the noise.

If you’re curious about where governance, tech, and new communities are heading, this will be worth following.

Read the first digest here, and subscribe to follow the project as we evolve:

Nodes Digest

Nodes Digest #000 | Welcome

Made with ❤️ from us, by Wagmit, Cookie, Eric, & Michael (Parallel Citizen…

Read more

2 months ago · NS Nodes and Parallel Citizen

Normal link: nsnodes.substack.com/p/digest-000

Nodes Digest

We aggregate, analyze and accelerate the movement of building new countries.

By NS Nodes

Subscribe to Nodes Digest: nsnodes.substack.com

You can expect the next deep dive essay publishing later this week, and the first edition of Nodes Digest publishing next week. Onwards.

Happy 2026 everyone! What a wild year so far… (its only January).

As a quick update: A lot is happening in the background as I’m building and working on a couple of projects adjacent to the space (in decentralized tech, privacy-focused authenticity, and in open metrics and dashboards within the network state and network society movement). The blog is still very much alive, but you’ll naturally see more infrequent posts. I’m also going to be visiting Network School sometime this summer for a couple of months, and 4Seas in Chiang Mai later this year, so if you’re on site and we overlap, DM me on X!

In the meantime, I wanted to share my first podcast appearance with Simon from the Speak Easy Podcast. His podcast covers prediction markets, startups, and AI, but he’s got an interest in the network state movement and I was honoured to be on the pod to give a snapshot on the space, its challenges, and where things might be headed:

From the video description:

We explore the concept of network states and parallel societies, discussing their historical and modern examples, the motivations behind their creation, and the challenges they face. Michael brings clarity to the impact of fiat money printing, the role of technology in enabling network states, and the potential for a reimagined state as a service provider. We explore the role of the state as a service provider, the impact of the internet on individual empowerment, the emergence of network societies, and the generational divide in societal values and expectations. We also explored the challenges and opportunities presented by technological advancements and the potential for real changes to challenge the status quo.

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction and Platform Discussion

• 05:52 Motivations for Exploring Network States

• 11:16 Challenges of State Legibility and Control

• 17:55 Ideal Scenario for Network States Adoption

• 26:35 Generational Divide in Societal Values and Expectations

It was a wonderful podcast and discussion, and Simon was a very gracious host.

Expect a regular blog post soon, and in the meantime feel free to follow me on X and subscribe to Simon’s YouTube channel.

Happy building and shipping, here’s to the year of the horse and all the change and dynamism it will bring 🐎

Support the Blog:

• My guide: Decentralized Social Media 101: A Creator Flywheel. I’ve made a step-by-step guide with everything you need to set up and interoperate Farcaster, Paragraph, and Zora in one sitting.

• Collect this post as an NFT token here: $HORSE

Sponsors:

• Trezor - Open-source hardware wallets for sovereign custody

• Kraken - Exchange for buying, selling, swapping crypto and fiat

Brief History: The Architecture of Authority

We talk about God-State-Network as the three leviathans of the 21st century; a new war of worlds fought between ideology, sovereignty, and cryptographically enforced community. But this isn’t a new fight. It’s the oldest political power struggle in civilization, just reanimated in code, fiat, and faith.

To understand how a decentralized Network can challenge the entrenched power of the State, we must trace the lineage of this triadic structure. The modern Network State is not a novel political form; it is the return of the intermediate sovereign—the force that historically sat between the ultimate source of truth (God) and the temporary wielder of force (the State).

The idea of three distinct, interacting spheres of power was forged in the crucibles of medieval and early modern conflicts.

The question was always simple: Who is the boss of the boss?

The Dual Authority (The Split) For centuries, power was simply bifurcated: the Spiritual and the Temporal. In 494 AD, Pope Gelasius I established the principle of Duality: the world is governed by the sacred authority of priests and the royal power. This effectively placed a layer of divine authority above the State, giving the Church standing to check the King. Architecture: God → (Church || State).

The Pivot: The King as Employee The radical shift toward the “Network” model, where the community mediates power and didn’t wait for the Reformation. It began in the 11th century with Manegold of Lautenbach.

Breaking with the idea that Kings answered only to God, Manegold introduced a proto-contractual theory. He argued that a King is merely an officeholder, comparable to a swineherd hired by a farmer (the people) to tend the pigs. If the swineherd slaughters the pigs he is meant to protect, the farmer is not only right to fire him, but obligated to do so. This was the birth of the “State as Service Provider” concept.

By 1324, Marsilius of Padua had systematized this in Defensor Pacis, arguing that the “Legislator Humanus” (the whole body of citizens) was the true vessel of God’s authority, not the Pope or the King. Architecture: God → People → State.

The Legal Formalization (The Contract) This medieval populism was weaponized during the late 16th-century religious wars. The Monarchomachs (”King-fighters”) needed a legal framework to resist tyranny. Their solution, detailed in the 1579 treatise Vindiciae contra Tyrannos, was a pair of interlocking covenants:

1. Covenant 1 (The Ultimate Law): A contract between God, the King, and the People. This bound the entire nation to Divine Law (Truth).

2. Covenant 2 (The Political Contract): A separate contract between the King and the People. The People, acting as the representative of God’s will, granted the King authority conditionally.

Crucially, the King did not receive power directly from God; he received it through the Community. This established the Community (the People, the Estates) as the intermediate sovereign that institutes, and can “delete”, the State.

The Modern Community: In 1603, Johannes Althusius systematized this view, defining the State as a “consociatio” built from smaller, foundational communities. The core dynamic was set: God/Truth is the source, the Community is the legitimate mediator, and the State is merely the conditional enforcer.

If you substitute the historical terms, the parallel is stark:

• 1085: God → The People (Farmer) → The King (Swineherd)

• 1579: God → The Community → The Sovereign

• 2025: God → The Network → The State

The Network State is simply the return of the “Community” as a digitally native, cryptographically aligned force, capable of resuming its historical role as the intermediate sovereign. The fight is about reclaiming the middle position in the oldest political architecture known to man.1

Balaji Srinivasan calls the three Leviathans God, State, and Network. Each has offered a framework that elevates something greater than the individual, such as supernatural purpose, national identity, or collective projects, to bind people into cooperative units. As Srinivasan observes, in the 1800s people refrained from wrongdoing by fearing God’s judgement; in the 1900s by fearing the State’s laws; and now in the 2000s we are increasingly constrained by truth determined by our digital networks, such as social media and blockchains.

In short, religion, nationalism, and tribalism are a feature rather than a bug of humanity. These are deep drivers of solidarity, connection, meaning, and in-group identification.

However, each of these feature forces has a dark side.

Taken to an extreme, devotion to religion can lead to cults and theocracy.
Taken to an extreme, nationalism can lead to war and genocide.
Taken to an extreme, tribalism can lead to ethnic violence and polarization.

The key question is how to hold on to the beneficial aspects of shared identity while preventing fanaticism. This question is unusually urgent today as global forces, including technological, demographic, and ideological shifts, are reshaping what community and state mean.

Digital network technology is enabling new forms of collective identity, the so-called network state, while many nations see resurgent populism or sectarian unrest. It might be worth mapping the landscape of religion, nationalism, and tribalism in the context of emerging network-based governance.

Religion (God Leviathan)

What: Religion generally involves belief in supernatural agents or moral forces combined with rituals and communities. It creates a shared moral framework and collective identity. Emile Durkheim and others have long argued that religion functions as social glue. Collective worship and shared symbols bind strangers into a moral community. Contemporary research affirms this. Moralizing religions historically united diverse groups under a common ethical roof. In essence, religion can help maintain cooperation beyond kinship by making people feel watched by a higher power, and connected by shared faith.

Modern trends show mixed forces. On one hand, religious affiliation is declining in many Western countries. Pew reports that U.S. Christian affiliation dropped from about 77 percent to 65 percent in a decade, and secularism is rising. Trust in organized religion as an institution is similarly waning in polls. On the other hand, religion remains extremely salient globally. A large majority of people worldwide identify with some religion or spiritual belief, and in several regions faith is strong or even resurgent (for example, Pentecostal Christianity in Latin America or Hindu nationalism in India). Moreover, even secular causes (*cough* politics) often assume a religion-like fervor and symbolism.

Features: When functioning in a moderate way, religion fosters community service, altruism, charity, and ethical behavior within the group. Shared rituals and narratives create trust. Strangers who share a faith often cooperate more easily. Religious charity organizations deliver education, healthcare, and social support in areas where governments or markets fall short. Belief in an ethical God can deter crime in low-surveillance societies because people behave morally when they feel watched.

Mechanisms: Religions leverage in-group and out-group psychology. They define moral in-groups with commandments such as “our people do this, others do that,” often framing outsiders as less virtuous. The Big Gods theory suggests that religion spread because it allowed anonymous cooperation. Believing in an all-seeing deity reduced cheating in large societies by punishing would-be transgressors with supernatural deterrents.

Real-world examples: Early Christianity, which created networks of hospitality and hospitals, and medieval churches that unified fragmented European polities. Modern interfaith organizations build peace coalitions across divides. Extreme cases are also numerous. Cults like Jonestown in 1978 or the Rajneeshpuram or Osho movement in the 1980s in Oregon illustrate the dark side of cult devotion. In Rajneeshpuram, followers built a commune and attempted mass bioterrorism and political subversion to form a theocratic utopia. World history is marked by religious wars, inquisitions, witch hunts, and in modern times extremist terrorism such as ISIS or sectarian violence. Even secular ideologies can take on a religious fervor. For example, Marxism-Leninism’s quasi-mystical devotion to communism has been called a secular religion by some analysts.

Risks: Radical cults are one risk. Small groups with charismatic leaders can devolve into totalitarian communities with brainwashing, isolation, and illegal acts. Historical cases like the Waco siege in 1993 show cultish religion merged with militancy. Another risk is societal fracture. When religion intertwines with politics, whether in a theocracy or through official religion, it can suppress dissent and fuel intolerance, for example political Islamism in Iran or militant secularism acting as a negative cult. Identity conflict is a third risk. Highly religious societies may exclude minorities or label them heretics, provoking persecution.

Debates: Some secular theorists once predicted that religion would vanish in a post-ideological world, for example during the era associated with Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History” thesis, but the reality is more mixed. Critics point out that banning religious symbols can backfire and that faith remains integral to many peoples’ identity and resilience. Others argue that the communal aspects of religion could be replaced by civic humanism or digital affinity groups. Balaji’s network-state thesis suggests that technology and blockchains might ultimately perform the social function of religion, but skeptics note that digital ideologies often inherit religious-style zeal anyways (Bitcoin maximalists for example, lead to a specific irony where the replacement becomes the replica).

Nationalism (State Leviathan)

What: Nationalism is loyalty to a nation, an imagined political community defined by shared language, culture, or territory. Unlike religion, which can transcend ethnicity, or tribe, which can be kin-based and small, nationalism typically scales to millions and is embodied in a sovereign state. In the modern era, nationalism became a unifying ideology. People accepted citizenship and nationhood as primary identities.

Features: Nationalism has historically mobilized large populations for collective goals. The concept of the nation-state enabled modern democracy and mass armies. For colonized peoples, anti-colonial national movements drew on national pride to achieve independence. Even in pluralistic states, national identity can generate social solidarity. National holidays, anthems, flags, and constitutions give diverse citizens a common narrative, for example the melting pot patriotism in the United States. Benedict Anderson’s idea of the nation as an imagined community rests on the notion that nationalism fostered cohesion among strangers through print media and shared symbols. A Stanford Encyclopedia analysis notes that national awakening struggles have been both heroic and cruel, reflecting nationalism’s dual nature, which can validate self-determination but also justify suppression of non-nationals.

Mechanisms: Nationalism works by categorizing humanity into us and them. Educational systems and media inculcate national myths. A narrative is built around historical glories or victimhood, language, and symbols. Military service, pledges, and civic rituals reinforce the idea that the individual exists to serve the nation.

Real-world examples: Constructive examples include nationalism inspiring liberation movements, such as Indian independence and the decolonization of Africa, and national parks and monuments creating a sense of pride. Welfare states have been built under nationalist social contracts. Extreme examples include hyper-nationalism leading to ethnic cleansing and genocide. The Second World War and the Holocaust were driven by Nazi racial-nationalism. Rwanda in 1994 saw Hutu nationalism demonize Tutsis. Modern examples include far-right ethno-nationalist movements such as white supremacist groups in the West, militant Hindu nationalism in India, and militant Islamic nationalism. Even moderate patriotism can slip into xenophobia, for example anti-immigrant politics in parts of Europe or “America First” rhetoric.

Risks: Ultranationalist regimes can arise when nationalism merges with totalitarianism. Fascist or communist regimes often require loyalty to the state above all, such as the Juche ideology in North Korea or the cult of personality in Turkmenistan. International conflict is another risk. Two nationalist groups may both claim the same land or deny each other’s legitimacy, making wars more likely. The fragmentation of Yugoslavia in the 1990s exemplifies how nationalist narratives can suddenly unleash ethnic violence. Domestic division is a third risk. In multiethnic democracies, competing nationalisms or sub-nationalisms can paralyze governance or lead to secessionist conflicts.

Debates: Today’s debate balances national sovereignty against globalization, especially in a post-pax Americana world. Some argue nationalism is necessary for democracy and preserving cultural heritage. Others blame it for hate and argue for global cooperation or supranational identities embodied in projects like the European Union or the United Nations. Political theorists debate civic nationalism, based on shared values, versus ethnic nationalism, based on ancestry. Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations thesis claims cultural nationalisms are driving current conflicts, but many scholars now see economic and political factors as equally or more important.

Tribalism (Network Leviathan)

What: Tribalism refers to intense loyalty to a small group, a tribe, and distrust or hostility toward outsiders. In modern discourse, this can mean loyalty to an ethnic or kin group, a political faction, an online community, or any tight-knit in-group. Balaji interprets tribalism broadly as allegiance to a self-selecting group, the network, which functions as a mini-Leviathan for its members (or, his one commandment idea).

Features: Tribal bonds provide deep psychological rewards, including belonging, identity, and mutual aid. On small scales, such as families and local communities, this is how humans evolved. In politics and culture, tribes can create strong collaboration. Political parties, tribes of ideology, allow like-minded citizens to organize and achieve policy goals. Grassroots movements use tribal solidarity to mobilize, for example environmental activist networks or open-source tech communities. A beneficial aspect of tribalism is its bottom-up decentralization. No central power is needed to enforce norms, because the group enforces them internally. Clark and colleagues conclude that no group, not even one’s own political party, is immune from tribal bias. Our brains are wired to form coalitions wherever possible.

Mechanisms: Tribalism arises from basic cognitive biases. We quickly categorize others as friends or foes. We reciprocate favors within the group. We trust signals from those who share visible markers such as language, clothing, or shared rituals. Online platforms accelerate tribalism by allowing self-selection of homogeneous communities and algorithmic reinforcement. People follow those with whom they agree. This echo chamber dynamic heightens groupthink. A Reuters and EBSCO review notes that echo chambers foster a sense of tribalism, where individuals engage with information that confirms their beliefs while dismissing dissenting opinions. Over time, separate tribes can come to believe even basic facts differently, making compromise nearly impossible.

Real-world examples: Constructive examples include small communities such as cooperatives or neighborhood associations that rely on tribal trust. Workplaces or sports teams form healthy tribes, building loyalty and cooperation around shared goals. Diaspora networks, immigrant communities abroad, provide support and business networks. Extreme examples include ethnic or racial tribalism that becomes lethal. The Rwandan genocide in 1994 was tribal at its root, with Hutu versus Tutsi. Segregationist policies and racially motivated hate crimes are tribal behaviors. Even in democratic countries, hyper-partisanship can slide into tribal identity, where winning matters more than shared reality. Fringe political violence is the extreme case: ideology hardens into ‘us vs. them’ loyalty.

This is why I separate two kinds of network forces: Network power is legitimacy via coordination (attention, mobilization, narrative), but Network truth is legitimacy via verification (digital signatures, public ledgers, auditable records). Think social media consensus vs. cryptographically verifiable claims, though both fall under the broader “Network Leviathan” category.

Risks: Polarization is a central risk. Tribal factions within a society can halt any compromise. When different tribes hold entirely separate truths, national unity erodes. Social media amplification means tribes seldom talk to each other (or even date/marry each other). Violence is another risk. Tribal clashes can ignite quickly, especially when identity becomes politicized. Civil wars and riots often have tribal bases, whether ethnic, religious, or ideological. Identity supplants reason. If tribal loyalty becomes the highest value, individuals may ignore ethical norms outside the group, for example extremist parties that vilify any dissenters.

Debates: Some observers argue that what is called tribalism today is just traditional community life, such as strong families and local ties. Others worry that labeling groups as tribes is pejorative and oversimplifies multicultural identities. Regardless, data strongly show that humans naturally form closed affinity groups. The key question is how to align tribes with open societies.

Interplay Between Leviathans

A key insight is that religion, nationalism, and tribalism overlap in their structure. All involve devoting oneself to something larger than the individual. In each case, personal identity is subsumed by group identity, whether God’s people, the nation’s citizens, or the tribe’s members. This gives groups tremendous motivational power. Followers make sacrifices, commit time and wealth, and sometimes fight and die for the cause (Balaji’s version has been critiqued here and here).

Common crossovers are frequent. Religious ideas can merge with nationalism, as in concepts like Hindu Rashtra, Christian nation, or Islamist state, or with tribalism, as in sectarian strife where religious lines coincide with ethnic lines. Tribal loyalty often has religious overtones, such as divides between Orthodox and Reform within Judaism or Christianity. The concept of noble cause corruption shows up in all three. When fighting for a perceived higher good, adherents justify unethical tactics.

Beyond ideology, these forces also function similarly at the psychological level. Balaji’s Leviathan framing suggests that if God and State are losing sway, the Network takes up the role of the group superior. Crypto communities and online movements already share cult-like aspects, including unifying ideology, charismatic founders, and exclusive symbols like logos and memes.

Network-state enthusiasts often write manifestos and commands much like religious texts. My own Network State Manifesto explicitly lists “Moral Purpose, one commandment that unifies its citizens in zeal”, resonant with religious imperatives. Journalists critique that high-tech libertarians in some contexts are adopting apocalyptic or end times rhetoric that is strikingly similar to evangelical prophecies. The process of group devotion is pattern-invariant whether the idol is God, country, or blockchain, and each carries a risk of overreach.

The Causal Story

Why do these dynamics emerge? The causal story has roots in human evolution and social organization. Parochial altruism, the tendency to cooperate intensely within one’s group while competing with outsiders, likely offered survival advantages in early human groups. Anthropologists argue that cooperative tribes outcompeted more isolated individuals. Religion and nationalism can be seen as cultural technologies that scale up tribal instincts. By creating supra-tribal narratives, such as a common god or common ancestors, they allow cooperation across larger networks. Tribalism itself is the underlying cognitive bias enabling smaller-scale cohesion in any context.

In modern times, the internet and blockchain networks have accelerated these mechanisms. Social media accelerates in-group signaling through memes and hashtags and filters out disagreement, effectively strengthening digital tribalism.

Cryptocurrencies create new tribal economics with loyalty tokens and native assets that reward in-group behavior. Globalization has stirred reverse forces. Massive migration and intermixing provoke counter-reactions, sometimes strengthening nationalist or tribal identities as anchors amid flux.

Thus the cycle is disruption through globalization and technological change, followed by identity stress as traditional tribes or state legitimacy weaken, followed by new identity formation, whether populist nationalism, religious revival, or online tribe-building. Reminds me a lot of Jacques Derrida’s philosophy of construction and deconstruction. Whether religion, nationalism, or technology holds sway depends on how societies and individuals seek meaning and security in the face of change. In the era of technological change, this means the Network might further expand in its relative power, over God and State.

Actors, Incentives, Adoption

Key actors include religious institutions and leaders, political movements and states, online communities and tech elites, and civic and NGO actors.

Religious institutions and leaders include churches, mosques, temples, and cult gurus. They mobilize followers, provide social services, and in some cases incite doctrine. The Catholic Church, evangelical networks, or transnational religious NGOs each play roles. At the extremes, fringe cult leaders wield outsized power, such as Jim Jones, David Koresh, or modern figures in extremist Christian movements.

Political movements and states include nationalist parties, governments, and their ideologues. Think tanks and parties such as far-right anti-globalists or ethno-nationalist parties fall into this category. States themselves monetize nationalism through education and media. The State Leviathan also includes international bodies like the United Nations or the European Union, which sometimes arouse nationalist backlash in others.

Online communities and tech elites include crypto communities such as Bitcoin maximalists or Ethereum developers, ideological online subcultures such as Reddit tribes or gaming clans, and the technologists pushing network-state visions such as Balaji, Naval Ravikant, and venture capital groups. They also include activists who form digital diasporas, such as digital nomad groups lobbying for visas or e-residency programs like Estonia’s.

Civic and NGO actors attempt to channel tribal impulses into positive outcomes. Interfaith dialogues and multicultural organizations fall into this category. They often pitch cosmopolitan or inclusive alternatives to parochialism.

Incentives vary. For individuals, the main incentives are belonging and purpose. People join religious congregations, nationalist rallies, or online groups to gain identity, friendship, and meaning. They often sacrifice personal gain for the group’s cause. For elites, the main incentives are power and wealth. Religious authorities gain social capital. Politicians exploit nationalism for votes. Tech leaders naturally see ideological branding as leverage; Silicon Valley libertarians enjoy cultural clout. For societies, national unity fosters taxation and public goods. Religious orders fill welfare roles through hospitals and schools. Network communities can create innovation clusters and new markets, such as the crypto economy.

Adoption curves also differ. Religion in many countries has deep saturation, with most of the population belonging to some tradition, though secularization is slowly reducing nominal membership in some areas. New religious movements appear over decades, such as New Age or syncretic cults. Nationalism is nearly universal in concept today because every country venerates its flag and anthem. Virulent nationalism, however, peaks in crises and recedes when internationalism feels safer. The 2010s saw a resurgence after a decades-long lull in the post Cold War era. Tribalism and networks are accelerating rapidly with technology. Online tribalism is almost ubiquitous among social media users. Adoption of blockchain and crypto tribes is still a small percentage globally but growing. One of Balaji’s hot takes is that eventually, all politics becomes crypto tribalism. Crypto citizenship experiments through DAOs and virtual nations are early stage, with tens of thousands to low millions of participants. The adoption of network-state ideals is niche but growing, through venture capital and genuine demand for exit from collapsing modern democracies and institutions.

Economically, religion is often nonprofit or low-profit. Churches and mosques rely on donations or tithes. Some sects operate businesses such as Christian schools or halal markets, or even enterprises such as multilevel marketing operations started by religiously connected founders. Religion’s economy is usually local and communal. Nationalism underpins states that collect taxes and run centralized economies or welfare systems. Ethnonationalist policies can restrict trade. Nationalism can also drive consumption through buy local campaigns. At extremes, such as fascist economies, states commandeer industries.

Network tribes create tokens and startups. Funding models include crowdfunding through DAOs, membership fees, and token sales. Network enclaves may crowdfund land purchases or rely on wealthy patrons. For example, the Praxis digital nation claims many members and is funded partly by Silicon Valley tech funds. The exit economy envisions people moving their human capital to places, digital or physical, of their choosing, which could reshape tax competition, talent competition, and real estate markets.

Building the Future

Builders can leverage healthy tribe dynamics by using group identity to build community and solve problems in areas such as fundraising, mutual aid, and trust networks. Framing a project as a shared mission can mobilize supporters. They should embed pluralism by designing systems that encourage cross-tribe contact and diversity.

A network-state might offer polycentric governance with multiple overlapping jurisdictions that let people join several tribes at once. Transparency and exit are crucial. Builders should provide clear ways for people to leave or dissent so that devout insiders do not become disillusioned or violent if things go wrong.

Digital platforms can help by codifying rules in smart contracts so that there are no hidden edicts. Builders should also guard against cult leadership by avoiding personality cults and using rotating leadership or decentralized decision-making. In the Parallel Citizen manifesto, I suggest not to argue against diplomats or pundits labeling network builders as utopians, and instead advise builders to ship and let results speak; credibility comes from building rather than preaching.

Policymakers and Governments

Policymakers should engage identities rather than ignore them. Religion and nation are core parts of many citizens’ identities. Governments can co-opt positive aspects of these identities, such as ceremonies and holidays, to bolster unity, while penalizing hate speech and extremism.

For instance, governments might fund interfaith councils to build trust across religious lines. Diaspora outreach is important. Legal pathways for diaspora citizens, such as e-residency, overseas voting, and cultural programs, can help bind global communities.

Many network-state proponents talk about diaspora-rooted solidarity, and governments can respond by facilitating investment and dual nationality arrangements.

Regulation should be sensible. Regulators need to guard against fraud, such as Ponzi schemes disguised as token economies, without stifling innovation. For crypto enclaves, frameworks such as special economic zones may be useful.

Estonia’s e-residency program and other zone-based visas are examples. Policymakers should support social cohesion by investing in education and civic infrastructure that help bridge tribal divides. They can use economic policy, such as progressive taxation and social safety nets, to reduce the insecurity that often fuels tribalism.

Citizens and Nomads

Citizens and nomads should cultivate self-awareness regarding personal loyalties. Everyone has tribal biases. We need to build incentive structures and open sourced algorithms to avoid echo chambers.

Communities of expatriates or nomads often belong to overlapping tribes, such as professional, cultural, or crypto communities. Embracing multiple identities can mitigate extremes. People can choose to engage in positive tribes by joining voluntary communities that have constructive goals, such as charities, cooperatives, and hobby groups, rather than closed ideological cults. Importantly, an open, cross-pollenated community is important to foster greater overlap between disparate groups. Avoid bowling alone!

Investors and Economists

Investors and economists might consider funding infrastructure for network enclaves, such as digital identity projects, crypto-based property platforms, and global civic utilities. Token economies, such as carbon credits or healthcare pooling systems, can be seeded by private capital as experiments in governance.

At the same time, there is a risk of fragmentation. The rise of nationalism or tribalism can disrupt global markets through capital controls and trade wars. Investors can mitigate this by diversifying geographically and politically.

Network-state enthusiasts suggest investing in tokenized citizenship or citizenship-as-a-service, but investors should monitor how host countries respond. There is also a role for societal impact investing. Projects that bridge divides, such as fintech solutions that work across national boundaries or platforms that enable diasporas to fund homeland projects, can produce returns while also contributing to social stability.

Looking Forward

Bullish scenario, Harmony of Choice: Network-states flourish alongside reformed nation-states. People treat citizenship more like a subscription, with multiple concurrent affiliations. Technology provides interoperable governance, with blockchain identities recognized by multiple jurisdictions. Religious and tribal identities persist but are channeled into civic engagement rather than conflict. Polycentric governance and multi-faith community councils provide examples. Global coordination on issues such as climate and health is achieved through networks of cities and communities. Key drivers include the technological scalability of decentralized governance, liberal rule-of-law norms, and demographic balance, with no single group dominating.

Bearish scenario, Fragmentation and Conflict: Tribalism and nationalism intensify in response to economic or political shocks. Failed network-state experiments amplify inequalities, fueling popular backlash. Populist authoritarians clamp down on crypto enclaves. Society polarizes into camps such as traditionalists versus transhumanists and religious zealots versus secular communitarians. International order suffers through balkanization of the internet, border conflicts, and economic blocs. Key drivers include major crises such as pandemics or wars that lead communities to retreat into rigid identities, and technology being used for surveillance by states rather than liberation.

Wildcard scenario, Techno-Ideological Revolution: A sudden breakthrough in technology or science redefines identity itself. If artificial general intelligence were to become dominant, human group identities might reconfigure around intelligence or quasi-deities, leading to AI cults, or around missions to colonize other planets, as hinted by metaphors that frame Earth as a womb rather than a permanent home. Alternatively, a global catastrophe such as a climate disaster or true black swan event could forge a one-world identity or nullify old loyalties altogether. In this scenario, all three Leviathans could be subsumed under a new Earth civilization faith.

Each scenario highlights that religion, nationalism, and tribalism are deeply rooted features of humanity. They will continue to influence how networked communities form and govern themselves. The task ahead is not to eradicate these instincts, which may be impossible, but to shape them so that they serve cooperation and innovation and so that their shadows are held in check by reason, diversity, mutual respect, and a positive-sum framing of the world and its emerging challenges.

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Article Summary:

🏛️ Core thesis: “God, State, Network” is not a new 21st-century clash. It is the oldest power architecture in the West, updated for code, capital, and coordination.
🔁 The translation: God or Truth remains the source, but legitimacy flows through a mediating layer. In 2025, that mediator can be a cryptographic network that can coordinate, enforce norms, and potentially “instantiate” or “delete” state-like authority.
🧠 The psychological engine: Religion, nationalism, and tribalism all scale cooperation by binding individuals into larger identities. Each produces solidarity and meaning, and each can mutate into fanaticism, war, cult dynamics, or polarized reality-splits.
🧱 The builder’s problem: Keep the upside of shared identity while limiting the shadow. Design for pluralism, transparent rules, and credible exit so networks do not become personality cults or brittle echo chambers.
📈 Forecasts: Best case is polycentric “citizenship-as-subscription” alongside reformed states. Worst case is fragmentation, crackdowns, and conflict. Wildcard is a tech shock that rewrites identity itself, including AI-centered quasi-religions.

When It Rains

Two market crises landed almost back-to-back in Oct 2025: a violent crypto flash crash and a major AWS outage. One was sparked by geopolitics, the other by technical failure. Both exposed the same thing: hidden chokepoints, fragile trust, and the difference between what you think you own and what you actually control.

In crypto, if you do not hold the keys, you do not own the asset. In the cloud, if your stack lives on one provider, your uptime is similarly rented, not owned. In British Columbia, the recent Richmond city land title ruling raised a more unsettling question: if courts can recognize a superior title beneath your deed, how solid is your ownership at all? These events together highlight a single story about blockchain resilience, centralization, and skin in the game.

The October 2025 Crypto Flash Crash

On Friday, October 10, a tariff threat landed after traditional markets had closed, and crypto, which never closes and has no circuit breakers, absorbed the full shock. Bitcoin slid quickly, altcoins faster, leverage unwound, and ~$19 billion in positions vaporized in minutes. Nerves were raw, liquidity was thin, and automated liquidations amplified the drop. The magnitude was brutal, but what mattered most was what did, and did not break.

On-chain performance. Core decentralized networks kept producing blocks. The standout was Solana (peak ≈100k TPS at sub-cent tx fees). Long criticized for congestion in past cycles, it handled extraordinary load at high throughput while maintaining usability. The contrast to prior stress periods shows that recent client and network upgrades changed real-world behavior under pressure. Ethereum mainnet also remained live and secure as designed, but its limited base-layer throughput fees spiked (peak L1: 15-18 tps at avg tx fee ≈$2.62/tx; Base L2 generally stayed stable in tx fees/usage). In the chaos of bridging and swapping, some activity shifted elsewhere. Trading migrated to centralized venues or to higher-throughput chains, simply because blockspace on Ethereum got very expensive during high traffic congestion periods, like a cascading liquidation event.

Centralized platforms. A string of large exchanges, private messaging apps, and AI services stumbled or paused functionality during the chaos. Users who assumed they could act at the worst hour learned a familiar lesson: centralized venues have rate limits, safety switches, and scaling ceilings that can all trip under correlated stress. Crypto’s “all gas, no brakes” ethos meant markets kept clearing somewhere, but not everyone could access platforms like Coinbase when they needed to most. When the dust settled and rhetoric cooled, prices recovered partway, but damage was done. Decentralized L1s kept going. Some centralized on-ramps did not.

AWS Outage: Web3’s Hidden Dependencies

A week later, a multi-region AWS incident knocked popular consumer apps and financial platforms offline. It also stress-tested Web3’s operational decentralization. The base-layer chains, which have globally distributed nodes, kept finalizing blocks. That is the point of decentralized consensus. But the outage exposed a lot of single-vendor and single-region dependencies across the rest of the stack.

L1 chains. Bitcoin and Ethereum continued to function. Solana’s validator set, diverse across operators and facilities, also kept producing blocks. When enough nodes and stake are geographically and operationally diversified, one cloud’s bad day becomes a minor annoyance instead of a systemic failure.

L2 rollups. Here, the differences were more obvious. Base, which ran its sequencer on AWS, saw an immediate throughput drop when US-East-1 had problems. Arbitrum and Optimism, which had multi-region or multi-cloud failover, sailed through. The message was simple: decentralize the sequencer path, or at least engineer redundancy across providers and regions. A rollup that relies on a single machine in a single cloud is a single-point-of-failure system, even if settlement is built on top of decentralized Ethereum’s Layer 1.

Wallets, RPC, and the interface layer. Many users saw empty balances when cloud-hosted RPC gateways hiccuped. The ledger was fine, but the window into it was not. This is the chokepoint problem in miniature. We decentralize consensus, then re-centralize the access layer in DNS, app stores, CDNs, and cloud APIs. The outage made that visible to everyone in one morning, and panicked a lot of users who thought their funds essentially disappeared. The lesson is not to abandon convenience, but to add redundancy and keep a clean path that does not rely on one company’s dashboard staying green.

Sufficient decentralization. The goal is not maximalism at any cost. It is to arrange systems so that no single company or government can stop the core function. On the outage day, L1 block production passed that test. Some rollups and most centralized platforms did not. The remediation path is clear: diversify sequencers, add escape hatches, deploy across multiple regions and providers, and invest in decentralized physical infrastructure where it matters most.

Rulemakers are the Rulebreakers

At almost the same time, a BC Supreme Court decision declared that Indigenous title exists over parts of Richmond, with the court recognizing the Cowichan Tribes’ title under long-standing legal principles that require an exceptionally high threshold to extinguish Aboriginal title. The judgment did not directly sue private owners, but it did declare certain Crown and municipal interests defective and invalid, which places a fog over the predictability of ownership where superior Aboriginal title is recognized (95% of the province of BC is unceded!). For homeowners, businesses, lenders, and municipalities, property ownership in a G7 nation like Canada suddenly became a risk. Recognizing Aboriginal title and protecting everyday homeowners are both necessary. The burden to reconcile sits with the state, and this ruling failed miserably in execution.

What changed. British Columbia’s Torrens system promises indefeasible title. The court concluded that statutory frameworks cannot be read to extinguish constitutionally protected rights unless Parliament clearly intended it. Combined with UNDRIP commitments, the result is a recognition that registered title can coexist with, or be subject to, Aboriginal title that was never surrendered. That is a profound shift in how urban land security is perceived. It is also the first time a dense, developed urban area has seen a court recognize present title in favor of an Indigenous claim that predates a century of subsequent transfers.

Why this rattles trust. The value of property rights is predictability. If a good-faith buyer can wake up to a superior title claim emerging from the 1800s, the collateral chain behind mortgages, title insurance, and municipal finance becomes uncertain. Banks freeze. Insurers balk. Homeowners cannot sell or refinance. Even if eventual coexistence is negotiated, years of limbo become a tax on confidence, liquidity, and civic cohesion. Either the province funds compensation and revenue sharing, or markets will price uncertainty into every future mortgage.

Who pays and how. The state created the problem through historic failure to acquire land by treaty and to compensate original owners. If reconciliation is real, the state must fund solutions that do not expropriate unsuspecting citizens through legal ambiguity. There are templates, such as affirming title while acknowledging existing homes and critical infrastructure, combined with revenue sharing or compensation funds. But speed matters. A decade of litigation uncertainty would turn a legal principle into a slow-motion social stress test.

Second and third-order effects. Capital is skittish. Entrepreneurs relocate when the rule of law looks conditional. Ordinary families lose trust when their deed is subject to change after generations. Political rhetoric hardens on all sides. None of that helps actual reconciliation, and it corrodes the cultural covenant that underwrites investment and belief in individual property rights, in the first place.

BC’s Energy Policy: Another Failure

Against this legal backdrop, the provincial government moved to permanently ban new crypto mining operations to the public grid, and to cap power for AI and data centers through an allocation process. The official framing prioritized industries that score higher on immediate local jobs per megawatt, such as LNG and traditional mining, over “emerging industries.”

Mining and flexible load. BC has abundant hydro, which means clean electricity. Banning rather than integrating miners discards a flexible demand resource that other jurisdictions use to balance the grid. Texas, for example, has paid miners to curtail in peak demand, smoothing loads and saving consumers. If you think Bitcoin mining is frivolous, you will celebrate the ban. If you think blockchains are becoming part of financial and compute infrastructure, you will see an opportunity squandered. My belief is that prohibition tends to export activity and in this case, important technological progress.

AI caps send a signal. AI clusters often employ fewer workers per kilowatt initially, but they can catalyze entire ecosystems. Talent follows compute. If your policy says the future must ask permission while the past gets priority, you do not become a hub for the next S-curve. You become a customer of those who did.

Short term optics, long term cost. Measuring projects only by immediate headcount misses indirect value creation, knowledge spillovers, and the compounding effects of anchoring high-skill industries. It also clashes with the theme of this post. If you want resilience, you want to own a piece of the future’s infrastructure rather than rent access to it elsewhere. The Government of BC is intentionally pushing away crypto and AI-related innovation from the province and the country — a completely backwards and asinine position for a country keen on revitalizing its tech sector.

Through-line: Ownership vs. Over-Reliance

Put the three stories together and some lessons emerge.

1. In crypto, ownership is operational. If you hold keys on a resilient L1 and have multiple execution paths, you can act when centralized exchanges or RPC gateways freeze. If your trading stack depends on one company’s servers, your market access is at their mercy. The crash and the outage week proved the point twice. Ethereum L1 still needs to scale solutions to minimize gas fee spikes. Base L2 and other RPC gateways need to decentralize their cloud hosting to prevent centralized outages from stuttering operations.

2. In cloud, resilience is a design choice. Multi-cloud, multi-region, and decentralization of critical components are not luxuries, but lifelines. Rollups that diversified sequencers suffered little. Wallets that had redundant providers kept user trust. Those that did not, showed phantom zero balances and added to user panic as the markets drew blood.

3. In land and law, predictability is the product. A callback to a previous post, “insurance is everything”. Torrens title is a promise that what you buy is what you own. When courts attempt to correct historic injustices, the state needs to pair recognition with clarity and compensation fast, or it undermines the very trust it is supposed to restore. If titles are contingent, the state effectively fails at honoring its insurance of property ownership. Investors and families will act accordingly. This means lower risk appetite, a complete shattering in the belief of property rights and ownership, and significantly more brain drain of talent and investment leaving the country.

Across domains, the common failure mode is reliance on a central actor without redundancy, and without clear recourse. The common success pattern is spreading authority, aligning incentives, and taking real ownership of the parts that matter most.

Conclusion: You Need Skin in the Game

Skin in the game means you carry the blast radius of your own choices. When you rent the critical parts, someone else holds the off switch. When you own them, you absorb the risk and keep the agency. Keys, compute, title. That is the triad.

• Keys. If your assets sit behind someone else’s login, you own a claim, not the coin. Hold the keys. Maintain redundant routes to settle, trade, and view balances that do not depend on a single RPC, DNS entry, or cloud region.

• Compute. If your chain, rollup, or app is pinned to one cloud or one region, you own throughput until that vendor fails. Run sequencers and services across providers and regions: have backups and redirections.

• Title. If the legal system can recognize a superior claim that pre-dates your deed, then ownership is only as good as the state’s enforcement. The state must pair recognition with absolute certainty, or risk losing credibility.

Between both October crashes, Coinbase & Base’s lessons are straightforward: continue on path to decentralization and 100% uptime. British Columbia’s lesson is harder: reconcile historic rights without putting the whole country into legal fog. Bans on new compute and infrastructure only further outsource the future and tell innovators to go elsewhere.

Skin in the game is alignment. Builders hold keys and diversify infra because they cannot afford downtime. Courts and governments work towards reliability and clarity because they cannot afford chaos. If any one of these actors shirks the cost of true ownership, or oversteps their boundaries, someone downstream pays for it with lost access, lost uptime, and lost trust.

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Article Summary:

💥 Oct 10–11: Tariff shock triggers a record $19B liquidation cascade. L1s kept ticking, fees spiked where blockspace was scarce.
☁️ Oct 20: AWS US-EAST-1 hiccups. Many apps blinked out. Base showed high RPC latency.
⚡ Policy miss: Banning flexible load and capping AI sends talent and compute away. Own a slice of the future, don’t rent it.
🧱 Through-line: Reduce chokepoints, raise resilience, take real ownership.
✅ Call to action: Keys, compute, title. Diversify, failover, and demand clarity.

The State of Democracy

In 2024–2025, democracy is stress-testing itself. Let’s skip the usual G7 loop and scan Europe and Asia for patterns the front page misses: contested legitimacy, harder state power, and unexpected experiments.

In Romania, mass protests erupted after allegations of election annulment and partisan court rulings – citizens took to the streets, refusing to accept that voting results could be erased by power brokers. In Taiwan, a high-stakes recall vote made headlines: an electorate swiftly rejecting a major mayor showcased that even institutional trust is now subject to direct repudiation. Meanwhile in the Philippines, renewed uprisings over corruption and impunity exposed how elections without accountability turn hollow.

Authoritarian gravity still pulls with force. Belarus remains a case study in systemic repression: jailed opposition, exiled dissidents, and an alternate-passport underground dubbed the “New Belarus” movement underscore how citizens resist being erased. In Estonia, the 2025 municipal elections introduced a disquieting shift: for the first time since independence, many non-citizen residents without Estonian citizenship, were excluded from voting at the local level. Their digital democracy model is excluding non-locals.

These fissures aren’t isolated; they point to a deeper shift: the legitimacy of states is increasingly challenged, not only pressured externally in global geo-politics, but also from within. When rules break, institutions betray, social contracts decompose, participation is hollowed out. As an emerging alternative path, people are turning to networks, diasporas, and algorithms for new foundations.

It is from this moment of fracture that Nepal’s Discord uprising and Albania’s diasporic voting and AI-augmented state experiments begin to make sense - not as futurist oddities, but as emergent responses to failing governance norms. Here, we’re going to explore voting and governance as two areas ripe for disruption with crypto and AI, respectively.

Voting

Nepal’s Network Coordination

Nepal’s political landscape was upended in September 2025 by an unprecedented youth-led uprising coordinated largely online. After the government of Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli imposed a sweeping ban on social media apps (including Discord) to curb dissent, tens of thousands of Nepali youths took to the streets and to Discord itself to organize protests. A brutal crackdown left at least 70 dead and ignited nationwide fury, with protesters torching parliament and other government buildings in Kathmandu (the “122-year-old” prime minister’s office and multiple ministries were burnt down).

The Oli government collapsed under the pressure, and the army stepped in to restore order and negotiate an interim government with the protesters. In the chaotic power vacuum, Nepal’s Gen Z turned to a Discord server to choose the country’s next leader – a radical experiment in cloud democracy. Organized by a youth group called Hami Nepal (with ~160,000 members), more than 10,000 young Nepalis – including many diaspora abroad – flocked to a “Youth Against Corruption” Discord channel to debate and nominate an interim prime minister, with another 6,000 watching via YouTube livestream. Over two days of heated, informal yet serious deliberation (memes and anime avatars intermingled with constitutional talk), the participants held virtual polls on their phones to select a consensus candidate. “We were learning as we went,” one 25-year-old protester noted, describing how they crowd-sourced legal advice and policy questions in real time.

This open debate and vote on Discord – essentially a leader elected on a chat platform – is something no electoral democracy had seen before. Ultimately, the Discord community coalesced around Sushila Karki, a 73-year-old former Supreme Court Chief Justice, as the figure with the credibility and independence to lead a caretaking government. She was duly sworn in as Nepal’s interim prime minister, becoming the country’s first-ever female PM (albeit in an interim role). This crowdsourced selection was “a revolutionary counter to the traditional practice of politicians choosing leaders behind closed doors,” supporters argued.

Backers called the Discord poll more transparent and egalitarian than backroom deals among elites. Indeed, instead of power-brokers dividing the spoils, an open network of citizens on the cloud collectively decided the nation’s leadership – a remarkable instance of a network community asserting political legitimacy. However, this Discord-driven democracy was not without challenges and risks. The ad-hoc process was chaotic: volunteer moderators struggled to manage the flood of voices, and questions arose about how representative or secure an online poll could be. Critics noted that framing it simply as “PM elected on Discord” risked trivializing the very real sacrifice and grassroots anger that fueled the uprising.

Yet, it underscored a profound shift – trust among Nepal’s young generation had moved away from traditional institutions to self-organized digital platforms. When formal systems failed, a web2 app like Discord filled the void, however imperfectly. This could have been a true crypto moment: in theory, a blockchain-based voting system might have provided a verifiable, tamper-proof way to capture the protesters’ will. But technology adoption seemingly wasn’t there yet – so, Nepal’s Gen Z improvised with the tools at hand. The result was a decentralized, cloud-based decision on national leadership, arguably the first of its kind. It exemplified what a nascent “network state” impulse can look like: a globally connected community (coordinating from Kathmandu to the diaspora abroad) stepping in to re-found legitimacy when the territorial state faltered.

Albania’s Diasporic Vote

While Nepal’s youths harnessed an online network, Albania extended its political network across borders in the physical world. In 2025, Albania implemented diaspora voting for the first time, allowing hundreds of thousands of Albanian citizens living abroad to cast ballots from overseas. This was a historic expansion of democratic participation: though guaranteed in principle since 2020, the right of emigrants to vote had been delayed by political wrangling until a Constitutional Court ruling forced parliament’s hand. Amendments passed in July 2024 introduced a system for out-of-country voting via postal mail, just in time for the May 2025 parliamentary elections.

Under this new system, Albanians residing worldwide could register on an e-portal and receive mail-in ballots to send back home. The Central Election Commission partnered with DHL to deliver voting materials across the globe. By election day (May 11, 2025), around 245,000 diaspora citizens had registered to vote from abroad – a significant bloc given Albania’s domestic population of only ~2.4 million. For the first time, Albania’s political decisions were influenced not just by those on Albanian soil, but by a geographically dispersed network of Albanians worldwide. As noted, “for the first time, Albanians living abroad were able to vote from their countries of residence,” ensuring every citizen’s voice counted regardless of location. This effectively decentralized decision-making beyond the nation’s borders, knitting the diaspora into the nation’s governance as a global extension of the electorate.

The diaspora vote is a form of offline network coordination – Albanian communities scattered in Italy, Greece, the UK, the US, and beyond could now collectively influence their homeland’s future through ballots shipped across continents. It reflects a key network state principle: the idea that a nation is no longer just a territory, but also its people connected abroad (or, in other aligned territories). Indeed, the unprecedented participation of out-of-country voters was expected to “significantly influence the electoral landscape”. In essence, Albania acknowledged its diasporic citizenry as a political force, an external network of nodes adding to domestic votes.

Yet, much like Nepal’s Discord experiment, Albania’s diaspora voting revealed the limits of current tools and the need for better tech infrastructure. Relying on paper ballots and postal services introduced logistical hurdles: the election commission warned that tight timelines might prevent many mail-in votes from being received and counted in time, given the 30–45 day window for international mail. This highlights a painful truth: the verifiable, instantaneous potential of crypto and blockchain for voting remains largely untapped. Instead of an on-chain voting system that could have provided real-time, transparent results, Albania had to lean on snail mail – a very web1 solution for a forward-looking idea.

The technology adoption wasn’t fully aligned with the vision, forcing a compromise in execution. Still, the diaspora vote was a major step toward a more decentralized, networked democracy. It demonstrated that even “on land,” nation-states are adapting to the reality of far-flung communities seeking a voice – a partial realization of the network state concept in practice. My prediction is that on-chain voting implemented in existing social apps like Discord/Telegram will happen within this decade. A future revolution is likely to be legitimized on-chain.

Governance

Albania’s AI Minister

Albania’s innovation didn’t stop at engaging its diaspora. In a world-first, Albania appointed an AI system named “Diella” as a cabinet-level minister in 2025. Diella (meaning “Sun” in Albanian) was unveiled in September as the “Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence,” charged with tackling corruption in government contracting. The AI was even presented to parliament – appearing as a female avatar on large screens – and addressed lawmakers during the new government’s confirmation session.

This bold move signaled Prime Minister Edi Rama’s determination to institutionalize advanced technologies in governance and improve Albania’s chronic corruption problems. “Diella never sleeps, she doesn’t need to be paid, she has no personal interests, she has no cousins,” PM Rama quipped, alluding to the AI’s immunity from human vices like fatigue, bribery or nepotism. The promise was that an incorruptible machine might do a better job than fallible human bureaucrats in monitoring public procurements.

Though hailed as the world’s first AI minister, Diella’s actual role is more limited than the sci-fi title suggests. Built by Albania’s National Information Society Agency in collaboration with Microsoft (fine-tuning an OpenAI GPT model), Diella is essentially a specialized AI assistant for public procurement oversight. The system is designed to operate at four key stages of the contracting process – drafting tender terms, setting bidder criteria, recommending price ceilings, and verifying documents – with a human expert required to sign off at each step.

Everything Diella does is logged and auditable, and it functions within the e-Albania digital government portal. In effect, Diella serves as an omniscient watchdog that can rapidly analyze documents and flag irregularities, augmenting human officials.

By leveraging an AI’s data-crunching and impartiality, Albania hopes to outsmart the entrenched graft networks that humans often tolerate or miss. Prospera, a startup society in Roatan, Honduras, also has a AI Legal Assistant that helps with navigating regulatory compliance for businesses, and pretty much every other legal and jurisdictional topic in the special economic zone.

The introduction of Diella illustrates a broader trend: governments experimenting with AI to reduce bureaucracy and assist in decision-making. Around the world, public agencies are beginning to use AI for tasks like document analysis, note-taking, and even drafting regulations. Albania’s step raises a provocative question: will we reach a point where AI systems move beyond just assisting, and actually start making government decisions autonomously?

It feels inevitable as societies grow comfortable with AI in daily life. If an AI consistently performs better than a human by clear criteria, why shouldn’t it have a greater role? Modern AI models indeed have some superhuman capabilities that could, in theory, make them highly effective public servants. The vast context window and lightning-fast analytical power of AI models means an AI minister could recall every relevant law, precedent, and budget detail instantly, far beyond any human’s capacity. Coupled with machine-learning pattern recognition, an AI could flag subtle corruption red flags or optimal policy options that busy human officials might overlook.

In short, an AI with a long memory and objective logic might do parts of a politician’s job more effectively – from drafting evidence-based policies to vigilantly auditing government finances.

Of course, Albania’s Diella is still just dipping a toe into these waters, and not everyone is convinced. The opposition derided Diella as a “propaganda fantasy” and even challenged the legality of a non-human minister in court. They worry the government might use the AI as a smokescreen – or worse, “exploit Diella to hide corruption” rather than expose it. Such skepticism underscores that AI in governance must overcome trust issues and require human oversight. Indeed, even Diella’s architects plan for human experts to remain in the loop for all critical judgments. There are also broader ethical questions: How do we hold an AI accountable for bad decisions? Who audits the algorithms for bias or error? As one AI governance expert noted, the more impact and autonomy we give to AIs in government, the more “scrutiny, transparency, and public involvement” will be needed to deploy them responsibly.

Nevertheless, Albania’s AI minister can be seen as a pioneering case of an AI agent taking on a formal governing role, however constrained. It signals that AI’s growing capabilities are pushing it from the periphery of administration (data processing) toward the center (policy enforcement). In the coming years, we may see more “Diellas” – AIs tasked with managing portfolios like traffic optimization, budget allocations, or even preliminary legal judgments. Much as the internet gave rise to network communities that challenge political norms, AI is emerging as a new actor within governance itself.

Crypto/AI: Enabling the Network State

Taken together, the stories of Nepal and Albania sketch a grander narrative of how technology – especially decentralized networks and AI – is transforming the state. In Nepal, a digitally native community (organized on Discord) essentially acted as the state for a moment: it aggregated popular will and selected an interim head of government. In Albania, a global diaspora and a virtual AI bureaucrat have been integrated into state mechanisms, expanding who and what constitutes “the government.” Both cases reflect core tenets of what some in the crypto space call the “Network State”: governance not strictly defined by territory or traditional institutions, but by networks of people (and now intelligent agents) connected via technology.

Blockchain and crypto principles loom in the background of these developments, even when not explicitly used. The Nepali youth’s use of Discord for decision-making echoes the decentralization ethos of crypto – leaderless, open participation, and bypassing gatekeepers – albeit executed on a Web2 platform.

One can imagine how a blockchain-based voting dApp or on-chain governance token could have provided a more verifiable and tamper-proof method for the protestors to choose their leader, with transparent on-chain vote counts. That technology stack wasn’t available to them in the moment, but the ambition for trustable, decentralized decision-making was clearly present.

Likewise, Albania’s diaspora vote by mail was a somewhat antiquated means to achieve a very modern ideal: borderless citizen participation, which is deeply resonant with crypto’s vision of globally verifiable, identity-based voting or DAO-like governance across distances. The next iteration might be leveraging blockchain IDs and online voting for diaspora citizens, eliminating the snail-mail delays and ensuring every vote is counted instantly and transparently.

In both instances, we see that crypto’s promise of open, verifiable governance is on the cusp of realization, if the tooling catches up to the use-case. AI, on the other hand, is injecting raw intelligence and agency into governance. Albania’s Diella hints at a future where AI-driven policy bots or “robo-ministers” augment or even outperform human officials. This aligns with a techno-optimistic view in network state discourse: that algorithms, not just politics, can run aspects of a community, potentially managing resources and decisions more efficiently.

Already Diella’s deployment suggests an AI can enforce rules (e.g. procurement criteria) more impartially than humans, much as smart contracts aim to enforce agreements automatically on blockchains. With rapid advancements in AI (massive context windows, improved reasoning), it’s plausible that an AI might one day handle the complex bargaining, data analysis, and public communication that political leaders navigate – arguably “doing a politician’s job better than any human could,” if measured by freedom from bias, information processing power, and consistency.

The convergence of these trends – online networks empowering citizens, and AI augmenting governance – points toward a new model of the state. It is one where community networks (enclaves of like-minded individuals, diasporas, or interest groups) can self-organize and assert sovereignty in new ways, and where AI systems provide the executive functions that scale human governance beyond crypto token, and our biological limitations.

In such a scenario, the “cloud” and the “land” start to fuse: legitimacy might derive from cloud communities (as in Nepal’s Discord vote) while implementation of governance could be executed by ever-present digital agents (as in Albania’s AI minister) and by connected and aligned citizens worldwide (as in diaspora voting).

This doesn’t mean traditional states vanish overnight, but we see old structures being flipped or retooled by these innovations. A small country today can lead with bold experiments – be it Nepal crowdsourcing its leadership decision or Albania treating an AI as a cabinet peer – that larger nations may study and emulate in some form.

The Road Ahead

The implications of this network-driven, AI-assisted governance are vast. On one hand, decentralizing political decision-making could make governments more responsive and inclusive. Nepal’s Gen Z proved that grassroots movements can leverage digital tools to demand accountability, potentially a check on complacent elites. Albania’s diaspora inclusion means policies must account for citizens’ voices far beyond the capital – a more distributed sovereign input that could reduce the risk of local tyrannies or echo chambers. And AI tools like Diella, if wisely governed, could minimize corruption and optimize services in ways no human bureaucracy ever managed, making the state more meritocratic and efficient.

On the other hand, these innovations bring new challenges. Decentralized platforms can be messy – as seen in Nepal, questions remain about security (could bots or brigades manipulate a Discord poll?) and mandate (does an online vote equate to constitutional legitimacy?). Likewise, diaspora voting might reshape domestic politics in unpredictable ways, possibly stoking resentment among resident citizens or logistical headaches, especially if not eventually digitized. AI in government raises fears of a “black box” governance, where decisions are made by opaque algorithms; without strong oversight, AIs might inadvertently entrench biases or be exploited as tools of those in power (imagine an autocrat using an AI to surveil and suppress dissent). The network state vision itself challenges centuries of political theory – it asks whether allegiance and community in the digital era might transcend the nation-state, and how to blend that with existing legal frameworks.

What is clear is that crypto and AI are no longer fringe novelties in the political sphere – they are catalysts for change in how communities organize and how governments operate. The events in Nepal and Albania in 2025 show early glimpses of a future where cloud-based consensus and intelligent algorithms can legitimize leadership and execute governance. It’s a future where a Discord server can help select a prime minister, where ballots can travel across the world from diaspora voters, and where an AI model stands alongside human ministers in parliament. These are no longer theoretical scenarios but lived experiments, with all their flaws and triumphs, pushing the boundary of the possible.

In conclusion, the rise of network-coordinated political action and AI-assisted governance suggests that the 21st-century state is evolving into something new. It is gradually becoming more open-source, borderless, and tech-integrated – much like the ethos of the crypto and AI communities themselves. As these secular trends play out, power may increasingly flow toward those who can build and harness networks (of people or of machines) rather than those who merely control territory.

For crypto-native and tech-aware observers, Nepal and Albania’s stories are exciting case studies in the socio-political revolution brewing at the intersection of decentralization and artificial intelligence. The coming years will reveal whether these are isolated blips or the first sparks of a sweeping transformation toward truly sovereign, efficient, and autonomous network states.

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Article Summary:

💬 Nepal’s Discord Moment
After a social media ban and deadly crackdowns, Gen Z organized on Discord to debate and poll an interim leader, converging on ex–Chief Justice Sushila Karki. Imperfect but unprecedented, it showed cloud coordination filling a state vacuum and hinted at what verifiable on-chain voting could do next.
✉️ Albania’s Diaspora Vote
For the first time, hundreds of thousands abroad could vote by mail. It extended sovereignty beyond borders and treated the diaspora as a real political force. The bottleneck was logistics, not intent, pointing to future blockchain ID and online voting rails.
🤖 Albania’s AI Minister (Diella)
A cabinet-level AI assistant targets corruption by auditing procurement across drafting, criteria, pricing, and verification with human sign-off. It is limited, contested, and auditable, yet signals AI moving from back office to the governance core.
🔗 Crypto + AI as Governance Stack
Crypto offers transparency, auditability, and global participation. AI offers scale, memory, and pattern detection. Together they enable cloud communities to legitimize leaders and automate parts of rule enforcement.

Five days of sustained, high impact networking can rewrite your operating system.

I arrived in Singapore with the Network State as a well-thumbed concept. I’ve read the book, listened to a tonne of Balaji podcasts over the years, and have a generally working vocabulary for The Third Kind of Thing: the transition from internet companies and internet currency to internet communities. The conference, the pre-conference meetups at Draper House, and a full-day visit to the Network School, however, didn’t just reinforce the theory; my lived experience speaking with many folks throughout the week gave me a more embodied sense of reality with these experiments that up until now, were more theoretical and abstract for me.

This was less a conference and more a massive staging area for parallel systems, proving that the Network State is no longer an aspiration. It is an active, instantiated movement, a new geopolitical layer in a world where old layers are visibly fraying.

The essential takeaway from the entire week: The primary geopolitical question has shifted from, “What is the future of my country?” to the more fundamental, personal inquiry: What community would I join, and where does that community build its node?

Part I: Ideas, Institutions, Insurance

My week was structured as a chronological descent from high-level capital to the ground-truth of local governance, and this narrative reflects that progression.

The Gathering: Trust as the Initial Capital

The two days preceding the main conference were spent at a co-working side event at Draper House, served as a crucial social calibration. This environment was designed to allow for a mix of quiet time as a co-working space, which also fostered a social environment for connection and spontaneous conversations. This was the kind of place where you stop asking what someone does, and instead learn about what they’ve built and who they’re trying to become.

Vikram Bharati of Draper Nation graciously hosted the Infinita City side event, and succinctly reframed the core problem of statehood by drawing an analogy to insurance. He posited that states, passports, assets, and communities are all fundamentally a form of insurance. That is, we rely on these nested systems and institutions and continue to engage in them because there is a felt sense of permanence, reliability, and cohesion. Implicit and explicit contracts are agreed upon and generally follow through, and society just… works. Insurance, in this context, is the first product a new society sells to its citizens: a guarantee of freedom to experiment.

All this crypto talk about parallel currencies, communities, institutions, and countries is nested on the assumption that existing models are broken. We can’t have insurance that our fiat currencies will hold their value, that our institutions will continue to run without being more costly and lowering quality of service, and that our communities will continue to be safe, affordable, and growth-oriented for the next generation. This scales the definition of insurance to something more expansive and cohesive.

If new, parallel insurance companies are willing to act as the counterparty risk for radical new experiments (e.g., medical longevity trials outside of existing Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or other governmental review processes), then the speed of innovation can accelerate dramatically. If new communities are willing to step up and offer society-scale services in a better, more efficient, transparent, and cost-reductive manner, then these emerging options become better insurance policies for people looking to relocate elsewhere.

In a finance analogy, one way of looking at it is that the success of network state experiments and this whole movement is a reflection of the continuing decline in confidence and faith that existing systems actually won’t be able to pay up if they got marked to market. Insurance in both a literal sense and a security sense is an important concept acting as a backbone to exit experiments as described in Balaji’s The Network State. Insurance protects against Sovereign Risk (i.e., state failure/expropriation).

The Velocity of Ideas: Mapping the New Geopolitics

The main stage of the TNS 2025 conference was a global operational update on money, governance, and culture, with speakers across disciplines and movements. You can watch the recording of the conference yourself (~9 hours), read this X thread (a few minutes), or read this blog post as a detailed middle-ground (~20 min read) to broadly get caught up. Below, I’m sharing five themed take-aways that stood out to me:

1. The Exit Strategy & The New Capital Stack

The urgency driving the entire movement was perhaps best summarized in the macro-context set by Arthur Hayes and the fireside chat between Balaji Srinivasan and Richard Teng.

Hayes’s thesis, the “get your Bitcoin and get out” macro, underpins the nonviolent exit from the current financial and geopolitical system. This is driven by an unavoidable, generational collapse of global trust in legacy institutions. We don’t know how many years Western institutions have left in them, and I felt the urgency to build exit bridges and parallel institutions for parallel citizens before shit really hits the fan.

Richard Teng (Binance CEO) highlighted the stunning friction and exclusion still present in traditional finance:

• Financial Inclusion: 1.4 billion people globally remain unbanked, and in some parts of the world, financial inclusion is still below 20% of the population.

• Legacy Friction: Global stock markets still operate on T+2 (Trade date plus two days) settlement, saddled with fees and inefficient middle- and back-office functions that simply disappear with instantaneous, internet-native capital markets.

Olaf Carlson-Wee of Polychain reinforced this generational shift. The 1995-2010 cohort grew up with 100x more internet access than the prior generation, and this group is increasingly looking at assets priced in Bitcoin (BTC) and other non-USD assets as Pax Americana continues its decline in global financial influence.

The implication is clear: The crypto-curious nomad and network-state builder are already operating within a different economic reality. They are not waiting for legacy reform; they are simply adopting a parallel, high-speed capital stack that is inherently more inclusive and efficient. “We can get very far, nonviolently,” as Balaji noted to Arthur Hayes (see a previous post where I highlight this non-violent protest as a Gandhian reform).

Loosely, one framework for scaling exit, is: Venture Capital (Pre-Exit) → New Institutions (Network School) → Exit Infrastructure (L1 Jurisdictions) → Sovereign Wealth (Digital/Bitcoin/Tokens/Economies). It of course is not the only method for reform via exit.

2. Governance as a Service (GaaS): The Layer-1s and Layer-2s

The most impactful element of the conference was the move from theoretical charter cities to active Layer-1 and Layer-2 operations. Niklas Anzinger (Infinita) offered a highly useful taxonomy for understanding the landscape:

• Layer-1s (L1s): Projects with regulatory root access control (legal autonomy), such as Prospera in Honduras or Ciudad Morazán.

• Layer-2s (L2s): Projects that build on top of L1s, focused on community, industry, and technology, such as Infinita City or Bitcoin Prospera.

• Apps: Technology that is unlocked by a better governance layer (e.g., biotech, hardtech, and crypto companies operating within an L1).

• Layer-0s: Enabling or innovative legacy governments (Honduras, Dubai, Palau).

This L1/L2 distinction is crucial. As Anzinger stated, “legal autonomy is like being on-chain vs. off-chain.” The cultural layer will only stick if it’s layered over legal autonomy. We’re likely to see more L2s in the future, like Ârc at Network School. I suspect that composable, compatible cultural enclaves enmeshed in geophysically proximate nodes is the way to scale culture, especially as these communities grow past Dunbar’s number. This helps keep the network society aligned, scale reasonably, and begin to naturally form communities and subcultures within the broader ecosystem.

The Landscape Map in Practice:

• Prospera Global (Honduras/Roatán): Lonis highlighted Governance as a Service (GaaS), arguing that policy and politics are the critical bottlenecks that the Network State movement is designed to bypass. Prospera, operating under its own legal system, is now “very close to hitting critical mass as a full-stack legal economy.”

  • Infinita City (L2): This community is tackling Eroom’s Law: the collapse of pharmaceutical R&D returns, by utilizing Prospera’s medical freedom. Anzinger stated that Infinita is operating from the Duna Tower (14 stories) with over 1,500 people and 100+ startups who have funneled over $20 million to those ventures. Their $LIVES token economy operates as both a gateway token and a stablecoin, used across 40+ vendors on the island—a textbook example of an L2 crypto-native economy (see this post on its importance).

  • Experimentation Expansion: The surprising announcement of a Montana extension of Prospera signals a new strategy: using Right to Try laws in the US to allow limited experimentation outside of Roatán. This is a brilliant tactic of jurisdictional arbitrage that scales legal freedom.

• Forma (Solana Economic Zones - SEZ): A clear indicator of the geopolitical acceleration of the movement. Forma hinted at three permanent nodes coming soon, building on their already demonstrated rapid progress with Kazakhstan’s “crypto city” and national stablecoin efforts. The focus here is on partnering directly with sovereign nations to create Special Economic Zones (SEZs) utilizing the Solana stack.

• Edge City (The Dynamic Layer-2): Edge City announced its push to permanent nodes, citing locations like Bhutan’s Gelephu Mindfulness City and a new node in California (Esmerelda). This shows an understanding that the Network State model must be geographically diverse - from frontier nations offering legal autonomy to established, high-GDP nations seeking internal renewal.

• Liberland (Independent): Vit Jedlička updated the movement on his 2015 project, which now boasts 1,300 citizens and over 700,000 interested applicants for its unclaimed 7km² territory.

• Ipe City (Brazil): Jean Hensen discussed their popup in Florianópolis coming in March 2026, and showcased demos from the previous pop-up, including the use of smart door locks with crypto verification and leveraging the community as an on-the-ground testing hub for new startup technologies like p2p.me and Yodl.

• Zuitzerland (Switzerland): The plan for a permanent Zuzalu village in Switzerland with the explicit goal of tokenizing its local economy to prove a scaling investment thesis (accelerator/endowment fund) is a high-signal experiment. Also the new Frontier Tower in SF acting as an inter-city network society and permanent Zuzalu hub.

Zooming out, some pop-ups that were one-offs are now becoming more regular. Others are building and establishing permanent nodes. Experiments are scaling and getting stickier - with communities forming around these geographic clusters. There has been significant positive movement in permeating and legitimizing these experiments around the world.

3. The Geo-Political Pivot: Why Now?

The core mechanism of the Network State is to offer an exit from the constraints of legacy nation-states, thereby initiating policy competition.

• The Mobility Nexus: Parag Khanna (Alpha GEO) highlights the underlying physics of human geography. With millions of people migrating annually and large-scale exoduses from high-tax, high-friction zones like the US and UK, human talent and capital is now “all up for grabs.”

• The World Builders: Bruno Maçães argued that the world can be understood as “constructive.” Worldbuilders (forthcoming book) - those who build the system within which others operate, possess “god mode,” the ability to change the variables of the geopolitical game (e.g., sovereign countries blocking Russian funds after the Ukraine invasion). Network State builders seek to reclaim this power by setting up a parallel game with a more transparent ruleset, and get to decide their own rules and experiment internally (while still aligning with host jurisdictions’ laws).

• The Neo-Medieval World: Thomas Pueyo (Uncharted Territories) provided historical context. The same forces that built the centralized state (farming, ports, railroads) are now contributing to its dismantlement. We are entering an era of neo-medievalism, where power is distributed among competing, transnational, decentralized entities - a perfect environment for new network states to emerge and compete with existing nation states.

• The Security Problem: Noah Smith (Noahpinion) addressed the most significant critique of any startup society: security and infrastructure.

  • His thesis is that a true Network State will look less like an independent micronation and more like a “Network of pre-2019 Hong Kongs.” These semi-autonomous Network Cities direct investment and trade but rely on a larger host country for security and heavy infrastructure.

  • This creates a New Hanseatic League model: a global network of cities where an attack on one node is met by a coordinated trade and infrastructure response from the whole network, punishing the aggressor. This provides diplomatic leverage and solves the military defense problem through symbiotic alignment with large, established powers (I’m not going to get super deep into this here, but it reminds me a lot of master-slave morality that Nietzsche talks about).

So many interesting theories on how to look at, address, and prepare for the changing world order, and the role of network states as a potential solution.

4. The Foundational Layer: Culture, Commons, and Code

This segment explors the necessary social fabric and governance mechanisms that hold these parallel societies together.

• Code is Law, but Culture is Glue: Yat Siu (Animoca) discussed the concept of a crypto economy and its connection to Gross Domestic Product (GDP). He argued that what holds societies together is law, and crypto automates laws with smart contracts and math. He also highlighted Roblox and Minecraft (300 million and 150 million users, respectively) as proto-Network Societies - platforms that facilitate user-generated content and ownership rather than simple content consumption. It’s better to “gamify work than workify gaming.”

• The Commons as the Third Institution: Michel Bauwens (P2P Foundation) offered a crucial counterpoint to the market/state binary. He argued that the Commons - communal shareholding and support - is the third most important institution that civilization has forgotten (over markets and states).

  • His concept of Cosmo-localism is a direct rebuttal to the “exit-only” critique: “Crypto is an exit strategy, and that is dangerous... We need coordination of code and capital with regenerative efforts of millions of people locally.” Cosmo-localism dictates that everything “heavy” (manufacturing, food, energy) is relocalized, while everything “light” (digital knowledge, open source plans) is global and shared. The goal is fractal capital that regenerates land and society, not just one that extracts wealth.

• The First Network State: Pascal (Polysphere) took the culture discussion to its deepest roots, arguing that the Catholic Church was the first Network State - a network of network states. It provided the original group cohesion, sense of purpose, and shared identity that allowed it to build the West. While dark network states (Bolsheviks, ISIS) exist, traditional religion has been refined over time. He argued that Catholicism is a viable model for scalable, enduring influence.

There is no one right way of doing things, and these speakers highlight that there are different ways of experimentation and setting the ground of culture, rules, norms, economics to create potentially thriving variations of network state polities.

5. Vitalik’s Synthesis: Embassies, Monasteries, and the Trade-Off

The final, essential insight came from Vitalik Buterin in his closing Q&A, where he outlined the critical cultural vectors for Network State nodes:

1. Embassies (High Accessibility): Central, urban towers (like the Frontier Towers in San Francisco) that maximize accessibility, proximity to existing talent, and access to technologies in high density.

2. Monasteries (High Community): Airgapped, secluded spaces (like the Network School) that prioritize deep community, holistic living, and the deliberate construction of a new culture.

Vitalik observed that Network School currently leans toward the Monastery model, prioritizing culture density over urban accessibility. This introduces a measurable trade-off: Accessibility goes up closer to the city center, but community goes up further from connectivity. Of course, these are not binary polarities but a spectrum.

He stressed the need for more experimentation on culture, specifically:

• Subtraction of Tech: Removing cars for walkability, creating “tech-free zones” where phones are locked during learn-a-thons or deep-dive workshops (a practice already implemented at Network School).

• Local Consensus: Creating a space for local agreement on 21st-century norms and expanding them outward - something hard to achieve in a highly connected, dense urban center where the gravity of the legacy culture is too strong.

This physical reality is where Product-Market Fit is achieved. As Patri Friedman noted, you can’t build a startup society by throwing money at it; you need to build societies people actually want to live in. The Network School (more below) might be proof that the Product-Market Fit (PMF) for a high-agency, low-friction, self-improving culture is emerging and approaching profitability.

Part II: Network School & The Physics of Culture

My five-day journey culminated in a full-day visit to the Network School: the physical node, or monastery, of the movement located near Singapore. After two days of theory and a day of high-velocity presentations at the conference, this was the necessary encounter with on-the-ground reality and a small glimpse of how things operated at ground zero.

Note the distinction between Network State (the global movement) and Network School (the local, cultural node). The school is the ultimate test of PMF for the culture, and acts as a sort of breeding ground for founders and those interested in the network state movement. What better way to build founders and new nodes than to live and work out of a startup society that is building and solving its own problems along the way?

Society as a Service: Operationalizing the Commons

The on-site experience immediately refuted any rumor of the school being an “abandoned ghost town” (as described in some blogs and media). The core team is operating heads down, scaling a physical community with high-quality, low-friction services, and the surrounding area, while mostly developed, still has economic activity and many local Malaysians living and working in the area.

For me at least, it felt like I was at a 5-star Mexican beach town from the future. Humid, warm weather, sandy beach, open spaces, solar punk greenery, growing third spaces, content creation studios, healthy cafe, and more. The energy talking to a lot of residents was optimistic, builder-oriented, and humble. There is definitely an emerging culture here that has potential for permanence, unlike past failed libertarian experiments.

vrn.eth’s on-site notes confirm the school’s successful operation as “Society as a Service”:

• Removing Cognitive Load: Residents commit for up to a year, choosing the school for community, high-quality living, tax benefits, and financial affordability.

• Core Services: Unlimited healthy food, consistent workouts, dedicated co-working facilities (phone booths, silent spaces, strong WiFi).

• Gamified Learning: A bounty platform provides a clear structure for “learning and earning,” directly linking community contribution to value exchange.

This model is a living, breathing space for culture and an established base for new L2s. Ârc, for instance, is one such community-within-a-community, demonstrating how these nested communities can function within the larger, legally sovereign movement. It is incredible the amount of productivity, seriousness, and responsibility each member of the NS core team carries in bringing this vision to life. Everyone from the core team, to long-terms, to new-comers and L2 members, believe in the vision. Many folks are actively experimenting locally to perhaps eventually build their own version of an ideal society for tech startups, founders, and anyone serious and willing to build; while having the other things taken care of for you, with maximum accessibility (healthy food, cleaning, fitness, co-working spaces, learn-a-thons, and more).

Failure Modes and Critiques

1. The Exit Strategy Critique: Michel Bauwens’ point on Cosmo-localism is the most potent critique: An exit-only strategy is dangerous and will face rejection if not coordinated with regeneration. The failure of historical high-cost, high-tax intentional communities like Auroville (which, as Ranveer mentioned, did not encourage a culture of startups or risk-taking) serves as a cautionary tale. Emerging network state experiments must be an ally of local people, not a mere extractor of talent and capital.

2. The Fickle Factor (Culture): In the fireside chat with Ranveer (BeerBiceps), it was noted that physical communities are less fickle/flakey than online ones. This directly supports the need for serious physical nodes, as purely online Network Societies (like a large Discord group or DAO) suffer from high turnover and low commitment. The challenge is ensuring the physical PMF justifies the logistical friction of showing up and establishing a base.

3. The Passport Problem (Legacy Friction): The practical reality of the legacy state’s final point of control was clear during the trip. One attendee had issues re-entering Singapore after the day trip to Malaysia due to single-entry visa constraints. Nay highlights succinctly in this X thread that “the biggest unfairness in the world is being born into a country with a shitty passport”. This underscores the fact that identity mobility is a major essential bottleneck the movement must eventually solve.

Open Questions and Leading Indicators to Watch

• The App Layer Gap: Niklas Anzinger pointed out that the App Layer—the technology that is unlocked by better governance—is still underrepresented at the conference. We need to see more companies taking advantage of the medical freedom (Infinita’s longevity focus) and financial freedom (Forma’s stablecoin efforts) now available in L1 jurisdictions.

• The Future of Token Distribution: Haseeb Qureshi (DragonFly) summarized the evolution of token distribution (PoW>ICO>Airdrop>Points System) and left the question open: What will the next iteration be? The method of fairly distributing ownership and membership is central to any digital-first society. Punk 6529 suggests that NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are better suited to express the nuances of reputation, alignment, and identity required to drive a Network State than fungible tokens.

• Regulation of Collectives: Vitalik Buterin floated a powerful solution to the passport problem: governments can regulate groups instead of individuals. A sovereign collective that demonstrates promise (GDP growth, norms of civility, high-agency membership) could negotiate with host governments for collective regulatory leverage, such as visa-free access to certain jurisdictions. This is a significant diplomatic goal and milestone for an emerging network state, and my own guess is that we are likely to see this achieved within this decade (2020s).

Part III: The Parallel Citizen’s Playbook

The ultimate goal of this synthesis is decision-utility for the crypto-curious nomad and network-state builder. The week provided a clear, actionable playbook for adopting this parallel operating system.

The Shifts

We are going from (Legacy System) To (Parallel Citizen). Instead of asking what company I should join, we are starting to take seriously the question of what community would I join? Agency is back in style, baby. The unit of career and life-planning is shifting from the corporate structure (H1B visas, HCOL cities) to that of a community/society structure. The old asset structures of T+2 day settlement and restricted stock markets are a relic of the past. Crypto capital allows for instant settlement, an emergence of the digital economy, and real internet capital markets. Optionality and exit paths from legacy institutions are building and forming. The Network State book is no longer a theoretical guideline.

The Playbook

1. Locate Your Layer-1: Identify the jurisdictions providing legal autonomy that aligns with your mission (e.g., Prospera for biotech/longevity, Solana SEZs for digital finance, etc.). This is the foundation of freedom. Where you start is highly important and relevant for factors including geo-strategic positioning, existing infrastructure, visa accessibility, legality, individual alignment, and living standards.

2. Join/Start a High-Density Layer-2: Recognize that culture requires physics. Engage with physical nodes that provide Society as a Service (like Network School, Infinita City, etc.). These environments provide the necessary social capital, trust, and partnerships that can move from idea to execution.

   • The Monastic Principle: Be willing to trade urban accessibility for community depth. Use tech-free zones and other cultural experiments to forge deep, non-fickle bonds.

3. Gamify Your Work: Follow Amjad Massad’s and Animoca’s principle: The ultimate game is creating and earning. Focus on content production (user-generated, user-owned) over content consumption.

   • The Long Game in Media: Internalize the lessons of NAS Daily (failed for the first 271 videos) and Ranvir Allahbadia (media is like VC: quick feedback, many reps, iterations, adaptive learning). Commit a bounded but real duration and effort to your parallel project before quitting. Agility and iteration are the only exit strategy in media.

4. Adopt a Geo-Political Mindset: Your identity is an asset. Actively seek to solve the identity mobility nexus by using technologies like ZK (Zero-Knowledge Proofs) and focusing on the emergence of passport and digital identity-like solutions. The goal is to move from e-resident (hub-and-spoke) to community member (mesh network).

5. Build with the Commons in Mind: Do not allow your exit to become a pure extraction. Embed the principles of Cosmo-localism into your project to coordinate code and capital with local regenerative efforts. The long-term health of the network depends on being an ally to the host environment, not a colonizer.

Open Questions and Leading Indicators to Watch

The movement is strong, but the following are the primary uncertainties that would change conclusions:

• Escalation of Enforcement: The current phase is defined by nonviolence and jurisdictional arbitrage. Any instance where a Layer-1 or Layer-2 project is met with a violent or non-negotiable legal/military response from a host state will really test the resilience of the network (Noah Smith’s Hanseatic League model).

• The Scalability of Culture: Will the cultural depth forged in monasteries translate into scalable, attractive norms for the mainstream? Can a pure monastery node grow to the size of a functioning metropolis without compromising its core values?

• The Network’s GDP: Punk 6529 is correct: The true impact of the movement will be measured not just in tweets or citizen applications, but in its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The key indicator to watch is the number of App-Layer companies that successfully build and scale multi-million dollar businesses only because of the legal and financial freedom provided by a Layer-1 jurisdiction. When the economic output becomes undeniable, the political leverage will follow.

Being a Parallel Citizen is no longer a fringe idea. Emerging network state experiments may soon act as a necessary option for a growing, geographically dispersed, and institutionally ambitious community that has decided to stop complaining about the old world and start building the new one. James of Ârc said it best. “The conclusion of the busiest week in a long time: I must accelerate”.

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Article Summary:

🌐 What Is a Network State?
A movement turning online coordination into real communities, framed by an “insurance” lens where trust is the first capital. This draft distills highlights from TNS 2025 and a field visit to Network School, positioning new institutions as parallel guarantees when legacy systems feel brittle.
💸 Money as Leverage
Urgency comes from macro instability and the friction of legacy rails. Speakers emphasized nonviolent exit via better capital systems, with 1.4B still unbanked and global markets stuck on T+2 while internet-native settlement removes middle and back office drag. A younger cohort already prices assets in BTC.
🕊️ Peaceful Exit
The thesis is to build opt-in bridges rather than fight. Nonviolent exit and jurisdictional arbitrage define the current phase, though the draft flags enforcement escalation as the key stress test to watch.
📊 Metrics That Matter
Product-market fit shows up in physical culture: Vitalik’s “Embassies vs Monasteries” trade-off, Network School leaning monastery, and PMF emerging. Macro success will be measured by the network’s GDP and the count of app-layer companies enabled by new jurisdictions.
🪙 The Revolution Tokenized
Internet-native markets make progress auditable. Instant settlement replaces legacy frictions, and on-chain finance aligns with a generational shift toward crypto-priced wealth, translating cultural momentum into measurable economic output.

Let’s begin with a reminder definition for what a Network State is:

A network state is a social network with a moral innovation, a sense of national consciousness, a recognized founder, a capacity for collective action, an in-person level of civility, an integrated cryptocurrency, a consensual government limited by a social smart contract, an archipelago of crowdfunded physical territories, a virtual capital, and an on-chain census that proves a large enough population, income, and real estate footprint to attain a measure of diplomatic recognition.

Resource Allocation & Peaceful Exit

Is it possible to eventually achieve some form of network nationalism? Having one’s sense of pride, identity, and roots tied to the network? Someone who would live by the network, and die by the network? While I’m not going to deep dive here into sacrificial poli-socio-cultural factors that make a network, group, land, or place defensible, this post is instead a broader attempt at quantifying the qualitative.

That is, I’m going against every human bone in my body by shifting the focus from the qualia of human elements that comprise our values: a felt sense of safety, community, belonging, connectedness, sacrifice (taxes, collective action, labour), and shared purpose, to instead focus on more left-brained valuations and metrics that might help define the “success” of an emerging network state.

While I admit this feels like a very VC-esque way of looking at network states, I also believe that the most peaceful resistance requires a parallel revolution that at the very least, in a small way, plays by the old rules and beats the old system at its own game. Meaning, money as fiat resource allocation must necessarily be a practical constraint worth taking seriously.

Otherwise, building parallel institutions with cryptography and community while attempting to bootstrap internet-first institutions without real funding or resource allocation can be disorganized, not taken seriously, and is more likely to fail (under its own weight, or get squashed by existing institutions that do have money and power, playing by the rules of existing system they were built upon).

For any kind of reform, really there are three options: Accept it, change it, or leave it. I argue if we don’t want to accept things for what they are, we must necessarily be able to change them from within, by playing at least some the rules of the existing system, eventually building a provable path to leave the system (exit) by carving optionality when there otherwise was none present.

Take the Anarchist Cafe on Toronto, Canada for example. The business’s presence was a direct protest to capitalism. It offered a haven for pretty much anyone (except police and military, calling them professional “class traitors”), and offered a “pay what you want” model, which, while aligned with anarchist principles, doesn’t quite fare well for running a profitable (even sustainable) business in downtown Toronto.

I use this business as an example of failed revolt. Not to bash anarchism completely and dismiss the ideology, but to note that a successful “proof of concept” must be able to at least survive the existing system. This helps to carve an alternative political path of resistance as an act of reform, towards replacing the current system with a proposed new one. This is recognizing of course how difficult it is to build something that is completely anti-capitalist within an existing capitalist framework (who would want to pay $10 for a latte when you can pay whatever you want? Why would I afford that when I have other bills to pay to survive in the existing system?)

But that is exactly my point. We must necessarily leverage existing systems to bootstrap parallel systems. Otherwise without radical reform (think: violence, insurrection, resource extraction, stealing, or other means), the prospect is doomed to fail. The current systems just won’t have that! And my belief is that network societies and states must follow the path of peaceful exit as much as possible.

The theories of Pluralism and Conflict Theory look at historical events as outcomes of a power struggle between competing interest groups. Through this lens, revolutions happen when multiple groups within an existing political system fail at conflict resolution, through their normal decision-making processes.

The decline of America and the rise of China, the changing world order more broadly, is likely going to be met with enough turmoil, displacement, currency collapse, poverty, violence, and radical displacement of existing institutions in power. The last thing we want to do is build parallel institutions that further advocate for violent means of exit and add to the chaos. Emerging network states to me, are a non-violent path for alternative exit.

I’m going to quote the Bible of all things here and reframe a commonly misquoted verse. It is not that money is the root of all evil, but the love of money that is the root of all evil. We can use the tool of money for positive reform and resource allocation, and attempt to break institutional and political corruption through the emergence of network states and societies, especially as they are built transparently and on-chain. Hence, the importance of valuations and the raison d'etre of this piece.

The Revolution Will Be Tokenized

In the vein of Gandhi, my bias is that non-violent revolution is certainly possible, especially in the era of cryptography. Gandhi’s playbook was moral power plus operational simplicity. Non-cooperation, transparency, local production, and disciplined presence were not abstractions, they were repeatable behaviors that scaled his movement of peaceful protest without reciprocal bloodshed. In a cryptographic era, those same principles can be turned into measurable practices.

• Truth and transparency become a public ledger and a visible charter. If rules live in daylight, you lower the temptation to game them, hence minimizing the risk of corruption tainting on-chain reformation movements.

• Non-cooperation with misaligned values allow for selective integration. You plug into legacy systems where it reduces friction and where legacy values align with network values, and you route around them where it protects dignity and agency. Depending on the values of the network, this might mean for example choosing to partner with existing military forces, or choosing the path of peace.

• Swadeshi, or local self-reliance, becomes a design target for import replacement and a rising local multiplier. The more your daily needs are met within walking distance, the more resilient the local network polity gets. One such example is some grass-roots projects within Network School that are experimenting with the idea of localizing some food and energy needs on-site, via gardening and trialing small solar farms.

• Discipline and civility in person become proximate presence and low coordination tax. When people are truly nearby and processes are light, the culture stays kind and productive (more on that below).

These are virtues, but they can also be operator metrics. If we want non-violent exit to compound, we owe it to ourselves to quantify the parts that predict durability. That is how you earn allies, capital, and room to build.

Evaluating Cloud → Land:
Community Pilots as Seed Deals

I hope I’ve made my case for the importance of money and leveraging existing systems to peacefully build exit towards new systems. Now, how can we value the success or failure of emerging network state experiments?

One of the conclusions of my recent blog post uncovering lessons from Network State experiments that made it to land between 2023-25, was to treat network‑societies like startups. I argue that the early failure modes are culture and unit economics of density, not ‘lack of tech’. Below is a 7-metric sheet (DLTV, CAC‑C, DPP, GSA, Entropy Tax, LM, RI) one could use when assessing the feasibility of a network state experiment, to see if it actually has a shot at compounding into a sustainable campus or city:

Density LTV (Density Lifetime-Value):

LTV of a member in a specific geographic cluster, not globally. Look for annual revenue per user (ARPU) uplift once members co-locate (coworking, housing, events, shared services). If DLTV ≤ global LTV, the “move to land” likely isn’t working, and there's no real "upgrade" in quality of life for the network participant. Lifetime value can be defined as the expected duration of stay for the individual, within the geographic cluster.

For example, relocating a startup founder from India to a special economic zone like Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone (JSSEZ), might help increase the founder’s ARPU by working out of a different location, due to the added benefits of relocation (currency, experience, passport, connections, and other forms of geo-arbitrage).

Acquisition Cost to Co-location (CAC-C):

All-in cost to recruit and physically land a member (visa help, housing guarantees, relocation grants, medical and health facility costs that might attract productive members of a network society). Great pilots could have, for example, CAC-C ≤ 9 months of DLTV (depending on the age of the project and initial investment). Scale and time would eventually bring CAC-C down as recruitment and facilities get streamlined and established.

For example, landing a crypto engineer from Saudi Arabia to an emerging network state community site could cost ~$8,000 - $9,500 USD all-in: visa support and legal $1,200, one-way flight $900, two months of temporary housing $2,400, relocation stipend $2,000, onboarding and training $500, recruiter and admin time $1,000, and a basic local clinic membership $600. If the colocated DLTV is roughly $1,400 USD per month, that CAC-C equals about 6 to 7 months of DLTV, which meets the “≤ 9 months of DLTV” bar for an early pilot.

Daily Proximate Presence (DPP):

The % of members within, say, a 15-minute walk on a given day. DPP is the “active users” of a given geographic proximity. Above 35%1 is where serendipity might begin to feel inevitable. This could be measured by badge/wi-fi check-ins, event scanning, or other opt-in, non-invasive measurements. The physical flow of people can significantly impact cultural transmission density and in-group cohesion.

Governance Surface Area (GSA):

Number of rules/DAOs/committees, say per 100 members. Too low → chaos; too high → bureaucratic drag. Target: minimal charter + fast dispute paths; increase GSA only with scale and keep the ratio steady (no hard or fast rules, and how we define "rules" is important). Informal rules and cultural norms don't count, only rules with decision rights or enforcement.

In the early stages of growth, formalizing these rules are tricky as so much is done through group chats, informal cultural exchange, and through the emergence of interdependence and trust between group members. Additionally, its likely that a lot of existing laws, rules, statures will be imported from the geographic area of its inhabitants (say, the country’s jurisdiction that rules over a given special economic zone). As time goes on though and the community scales, there is a ripe period of time where formalizing rules and dispute arbitrations starts to make sense. If done too late, this can also spell trouble and affect the perceived reputation and authority of network and community governance.

Entropy Tax:

Measured as the weekly “coordination hours” per member. Good org design keeps the entropy tax as low as feasibly possible, while still delivering quality output. Having local measurements within teams/groups helps to see where efficiency gains can be made, and where things are working well. The baseline for this number might look differently depending on the composition, size, and objectives of specific teams and organizations.

Local Multiplier (LM):

For every 1 imported member, how many locals are hired/served? For example, LM > 1.5 predicts political durability with host jurisdictions. If cultural assimilation is more important within a given jurisdiction, say, for example in rural Japan, then perhaps there should be a greater sensitivity to this metric. Longer-term and towards peace, working towards cultural integration between host culture and emerging network enclave culture is important.

Replaceability Index (RI):

Also known as the "bus number". With any startup, this is a natural risk with a small and fragile team. If the core team vanished for 30 days, what breaks? Low RI (i.e., high replaceability) means the culture and systems, not just key personalities, can carry the load and scale the mission. It's likely that the RI is to some extent limited by Dunbar's number, which is especially important when "company" and "community" become synonymous and are scaling in their early stages.

Investor Takeaway

Back teams showing rising DLTV, falling CAC‑C (cohort‑over‑cohort), a DPP flywheel (≥35% most days, higher on programmed peaks), and a stable Entropy Tax. Guardrails: GSA grows sub-linearly with headcount, LM ≥ 1.5 by month 12, and RI ≥ 30 days of core‑team absence. These are some examples of place‑based analogs of product-market fit and efficient growth. In other words, the difference between a vibes‑heavy meetup, and a viable and sustainable community.

PS: You can reach out if you are a VC or investor and have an interest, or are exploring an investment fund looking into early stage network state experiments. I might be able to offer some support.

Money as Non-violent Leverage

Non-violence does not mean naïveté. In plural, contested systems, resource allocation is how peaceful actors defend space to operate. You cannot coordinate housing, visas, clinics, schools, or dispute resolution by yapping in Telegram groups alone. You need a pricing function for density and a way to prove that co-location improves the lives of participants and neighbors.

So here is the translation layer from principle to practice:

• Presence with purpose maps to Daily Proximate Presence. If people are close most days, serendipity stops being luck and starts being a utility.

• Truthful charters map to Governance Surface Area. Keep the rulebook small, legible, and evolving sub-linearly with headcount.

• Local self-reliance maps to the Local Multiplier. If each imported member creates more local work than they consume, politics bends in your favor and the community experiment starts to feel positive-sum for more people.

• Discipline in coordination maps to the Entropy Tax. Fewer hours on process, more on production, means culture that lasts and can scale.

• Resilience without idols maps to the Replaceability Index. If you function when the founders vanish for a month, you are building a society, not a personality cult.

• Dignity in daily life maps to Density LTV. If co-location does not improve lifetime value for members, then “on land” is just a more expensive chat room.

• Peaceful scaling maps to CAC to Co-location trending down by cohort. You are not buying friends, you are standardizing a welcome that soon sells itself.

With this framing in place, we can score cloud-to-land pilots like seed deals. Not to financialize the soul of a community, but to protect it with numbers that outsiders respect, towards international legitimacy and diplomatic recognition.

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Article Summary:

🌐 What Is a Network State? A social network with moral innovation, crypto, governance, land, and census aiming at recognition.
💸 Money as Leverage: Resource allocation is the non-violent defense. Without capital, parallel systems collapse.
🕊️ Peaceful Exit: Accept, change, or leave: network states must carve optionality without violence.
📊 Metrics That Matter: DLTV, CAC-C, DPP, GSA, Entropy Tax, LM, RI → turning community values into investor-grade signals.
🪙 The Revolution Tokenized: Transparent, measurable, and capital-ready, building legitimacy through numbers outsiders respect.

From Walled Gardens to Protocol Dreams

For two decades, social media has been defined by centralization. Facebook, Twitter (now X), Instagram, and TikTok built digital empires around data lock-in, algorithmic control, and unilateral moderation. Users stuck with the convenience of seamless global connection, but in the process, become the product. User data was harvested, feeds manipulated, and speech governed by opaque and shifting policies.

Decentralized social media (DeSo) is the counter-movement. Instead of one company controlling the “town square,” decentralized models distribute identity, content, and governance across open networks. In practice, that means a user can port their followers between apps, communities can set their own moderation standards, and developers can build alternative clients on shared data.

The idea is not new. Federated experiments date back to 2008. But a series of tipping points between 2020 and 2023: privacy scandals, Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, regulatory shifts, and the maturation of protocols, propelled decentralized alternatives into the mainstream. Today, Mastodon, Bluesky, Farcaster, Lens, and Nostr coexist with Meta’s Threads and Coinbase’s Base. None has yet replaced the incumbents, but all are shaping a pluralistic future.

This essay traces the 15-year arc of decentralized social media: its failed experiments, quiet successes, and the unresolved dilemmas still haunting the vision. The goal is not to predict a single “Facebook killer,” but to map how protocols, incentives, and culture have evolved - and what that means for builders, investors, and communities exploring new digital sovereignties.

The Proto-Federation Era (2008–2015)

Identi.ca and StatusNet (2008)

The story begins with Identi.ca, launched by Evan Prodromou in July 2008. Built on open-source software (StatusNet, originally “Laconica”), it implemented the OpenMicroBlogging protocol. This was the first real attempt at a decentralized Twitter clone. Users on different servers could follow each other’s updates, a radical idea at a time when Twitter itself was frequently crashing.

Identi.ca never gained mass adoption. TechCrunch quipped in 2008 that “the problem with Identi.ca is that it’s not Twitter.” But it planted the seed: federation was possible, even if inconvenient for mainstream users.

Diaspora (2010)

If Identi.ca was an engineer’s experiment, Diaspora was a cultural statement. Launched via Kickstarter in 2010, it raised over $200,000 as the “Facebook alternative”. Its “pod” model let users self-host their social graph, promising privacy and autonomy. For the first time, mainstream media covered decentralized social networks seriously.

Diaspora never reached critical mass. The learning curve was steep, its features lagged Facebook, and tragedy struck when one of its founders died by suicide in 2011. Yet Diaspora introduced concepts like user-owned servers and portable identity, which directly influenced the later Fediverse.

Friendica, GNU Social, and OStatus (2010s)

Projects like Friendica and GNU Social (2010–2012) kept the federation dream alive, building on OStatus, a protocol that combined feeds (Atom), pub-sub, and updates. These platforms formed a loose network, sustaining the “open social web” idea through the early 2010s.

These efforts were more proof-of-concept than mainstream adoption. Still, by the mid-2010s, the technical groundwork was set for something larger.

The Fediverse & ActivityPub Era (2016–2019)

Mastodon (2016)

The breakthrough came with Mastodon, launched by German developer Eugen Rochko in 2016. Mastodon offered a Twitter-like interface, polished UX, and native support for ActivityPub - a federated protocol later standardized by the W3C in 2018. Each Mastodon server (“instance”) could set its own rules, but all could interoperate.

Mastodon became the anchor of what came to be known as the Fediverse: a constellation of interoperable apps (Pixelfed for Instagram-style sharing, PeerTube for YouTube-style video, WriteFreely for blogging). This applied the email model (Gmail ↔ Outlook interoperability) to social feeds.

Mastodon remained niche until 2022. Then, Elon Musk bought Twitter.

The Twitter Exodus (2022)

Musk’s chaotic ownership of Twitter (rebranded as X in 2023) triggered an exodus. Mastodon’s user base surged by 700,000 in two weeks after the acquisition. By early 2023, it counted over 10 million registered accounts. Even with relatively low activity, the migration proved federation was viable.

Meanwhile, Meta’s Threads, launched in July 2023, adopted ActivityPub compatibility. It gained 100 million signups in five days, the fastest consumer app launch in history at that point in time. However, the surge was short-lived, as it then lost ~80% of active users within months. Even Big Tech struggled with retention.

Governance and Moderation (2023)

The Fediverse also exposed the moderation dilemma. Instances could “defederate” (block other servers), leading to fragmentation. In 2023, many Mastodon admins pledged to block Meta’s Threads via the so-called “Fedipact,” fearing corporate co-option. This revealed the core tension: federation empowers communities, but consensus between federated servers was bifurcated.

The Blockchain Social Era (2016–2021)

Steemit and Hive (2016–2020)

While Mastodon leaned on federation, blockchain experiments sought economic incentives. Steemit, launched in 2016, rewarded posts and curation with STEEM tokens. It attracted over one million users, popularizing “earn by posting”.

But governance proved fragile. In 2020, a hostile takeover from Justin Sun led to a fork: Hive. This episode highlighted the risks of token-based governance. Whales would have outsized power and dominating influence, leading communities to revolt. It was a lesson in the limits of “decentralization” when token distribution is uneven, but also highlights the power of decentralized network coordination, in the face of a perceived threat actor.

Minds, Scuttlebutt, and Peepeth (2015-2018)

Other experiments tested edges:

• Minds (2015–2017) combined free speech branding with crypto rewards.

• Scuttlebutt and its mobile client Manyverse (2016–2019) offered an offline-first, peer-to-peer model.

• Peepeth (2018) built a minimalist microblog on Ethereum as an early proof of concept for blockchain social feeds.

These remained subcultures, proving concepts without mass scale.

Mirror (2020) & Paragraph (2021)

Mirror first launched in 2020 as a web3 publishing platform for writers. It introduced crowdfunded essays, tokenized blogs, and decentralized storage. Paragraph launched a year later as a web3 newsletter + subscription tool. It extended Mirror’s ideas into ongoing publishing/subscription economies. Paragraph later acquired Mirror in 2024.

While blogs wouldn’t traditionally qualify as social media platforms, X now allows for long-form posts and articles, and sites like Substack have incorporated Twitter-like social feeds baked into its blogging platform. The blogging era has largely merged with social media, so these platforms can’t be ignored as strong web3 alternatives that allow for publishing and supporting writers, on-chain.

BitClout/DeSo (2021)

The speculative peak came with BitClout, later rebranded as DeSo (Decentralized Social). Launched in 2021, it tied tradable tokens to user identities - essentially a market for clout. Critics slammed it as exploitative. Its notoriety, however, signaled the appetite for experimental models linking social and finance.

The key identifier for DeSo is that they have their own blockchain and tokenomics, with promising high-throughput, fully on-chain social media. While this means DeSo is not as interoperable as Farcaster, it has the advantage of running on a unified blockchain layer in a tight ecosystem that is still permissionless, uncensored, and allows for unique funding and token-gated social models.

Republike (2022)

Republike began circulating its vision in 2022, outlined in a white paper that sketched a “beta republic” for digital citizens. But in 2025 the project starting to become more publicly accessible.

Unlike BitClout/DeSo, which financialized social clout into tradable tokens, Republike framed itself as a governance-first experiment. Users joined not as mere posters but as “citizens,” subscribing with AUREUS tokens, participating in a DAO-style structure, and voting on rules, content, and community values. The idea was to replace attention-driven feeds with a constitutional, civic model of online life.

Though still modest in scale, Republike’s significance lies in shifting decentralized social media from speculation toward governance. It anticipated the network-state discourse by weaving citizenship, sovereignty, and civic participation into the fabric of a social graph. In hindsight, Republike reads less like a DeSo clone and more like an early attempt to fuse social networking with political architecture - a reminder that decentralized social has always been about more than feeds and likes.

Protocol & Composability Era (2022–2025)

By the early 2020s, the conversation shifted from “platforms” to “protocols.” Instead of building a full competitor to Twitter or Facebook, projects focused on open layers that apps could plug into.

Lens Protocol (2022)

Launched on Polygon in 2022, Lens allowed users to mint their social graph as NFTs - portable, user-owned assets. Developers could build apps on top: Orb (Instagram-like), Lenster (now called Hey, a Twitter-like), and more. Lens reframed social identity as composable property. Below is a list of apps compatible with the Lens profile.

Farcaster (2022)

Farcaster, designed in 2020 and gaining momentum by 2022, became a hub for Web3 communities. Its client emphasized portable identity (via Ethereum keys) and composability. In 2024, Farcaster introduced Frames, which are interactive posts with in-feed transactions. This introduction caused daily active users to spike from ~5,000 to ~25,000 in a week. By 2025, Farcaster gained further exposure with The Base App acting as an interoperable UX layer for everything built to the Base Layer 2, which itself is built on Ethereum.

CyberConnect (2021)

Farcaster and Lens also compete with CyberConnect (2021), a social graph protocol popular in Asia. CyberConnect is influential regionally, even if less present in Western narratives. CyberConnect is building the social layer of Web3: a protocol that lets people own their digital identity, social graph, and content across apps and chains. Through its CyberProfile passport and CyberGraph contracts, users can carry their connections and reputation wherever they go, while developers plug into a ready-made network effect instead of starting from scratch. With their social identity aggregator, Link3, proving adoption at scale and smoothing away Web3 friction. CyberConnect positions itself as both infrastructure and ecosystem, bridging the usability of Web2 with the sovereignty of decentralized social.

Nostr (2021)

Nostr (“Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays”) took a minimalist path. Backed early by Jack Dorsey, it used public-private key pairs and simple relays. Its openness led to spam problems, but also made it resilient to censorship. By 2023, it had become a favored tool among Bitcoin communities and has a small but committed group of active users.

Bluesky and the AT Protocol (2023)

Spun out of Twitter by Jack Dorsey, Bluesky launched in 2023 on the AT Protocol. It separated data (personal data servers), indexing (relays), and presentation (app views). By mid-2025, Bluesky had over 38 million users and 4.1 million daily actives. Its growth rivaled Mastodon, though debates about moderation persist.

Base and the “Everything App” (2023–2025)

Coinbase launched Base, an Ethereum Layer-2, in 2023. By 2025, it positioned itself as an “everything app” (The Base App): hosting Farcaster, Zora (for creator coins), and a booming market of tokenized content. Daily token launches on Zora jumped from 6,600 to over 50,000 in July 2024. At the time of writing, The Base App actually replaces the original Coinbase app on smartphones (though its full fledged “everything app” version is largely still in closed beta). This marked a shift: decentralized, interoperable content itself is becoming available on user apps that aim to do it all.

Zora (2020–2025)

Zora began as an NFT marketplace protocol but quickly evolved into one of the most important cultural layers of Web3. By 2023 it positioned itself as the home for “media as an asset”, not just buying and selling digital art, but minting any form of content directly onto a blockchain. Writers, musicians, meme-makers, and communities could all issue tokens tied to their work, with royalties and provenance enforced at the protocol level.

Its integration with Base in April 2025 accelerated adoption. Zora blurred the line between social and financial networks: a Farcaster post could double as a mintable collectible; a community could crowdfund through tokenized memes; a newsletter could embed monetization primitives by default. Zora’s significance lies in turning content itself into programmable infrastructure, positioning itself as a rival cultural layer to Instagram’s user experience.

Honorable Mentions

• Odysee / LBRY (2020) → decentralized video hosting, libertarian following.

• Sapien (2018) → tokenized Reddit-like news, short-lived.

• Rally / TryRoll (2020) → social token infrastructure, now mostly sunset.

• DSCVR (2021) → Web3 social on Internet Computer, active but niche.

Actors, Incentives, Value Flow

Protocols

ActivityPub, AT Protocol, Farcaster, Lens, and Nostr each optimize for a different axis: interop, portability without chains, composability with chains, creator finance, or maximal resilience. None is strictly dominant, which suggests a long period of pluralism as decentralized social media evolves.

Clients and servers

Farcaster, multiple Mastodon servers, the Base mobile app, the Bluesky client, Lens apps like Hey and Orb, and a growing list of Nostr clients. Competition happens in the client layer: onboarding, moderation tooling, curation surfaces, and developer extensibility. Server operators in the Fediverse shoulder community norms, cost, and legal risk. On-chain has its benefits.

Creators and communities

Creators gain audience portability and diverse monetization options: protocol-level tips, mints, splits, and creator coins. Communities gain moderation sovereignty and the ability to “defederate” or fork if values diverge. The risk is fragmentation and discovery costs when there is no single feed to rule them all.

Infra hubs and gravity wells

This can get a bit confusing as “infra” can include layer-2s, protocols, and UX layers. Base has become a social-creator gravity well for on-chain social. Lens was built on Polygon but has now migrated to its own L2 called Lens Chain, built on zkSync Era, while Farcaster is built on Ethereum with an off-chain data solution and has a presence on several other L2s and L3s, including Base and Optimism. Base also has the everything app, which tries to combine a bunch of L1 and L2 activity in a clean UI and UX.

Network hosts of AT Protocol PDSs and ActivityPub instances concentrate soft power when they serve many users. This is decentralization’s recurring issue: networks are distributed, but usage concentrates around well-run hubs. See a previous post where I dig deep into the idea of sufficient decentralization and network chokepoints.

Value flows

In the Fediverse, subscriptions, donations, and grants dominate. In on-chain social, value flows through interoperability, protocol fees, creator mints, tip jars, and tokenized media. The strongest long-term models will likely blend recurring revenue for creators with modest, transparent protocol takes. Ad models remain possible at the client layer, but face cultural pushback.

Risks & Failure Modes

1. Moderation paradox: Decentralization empowers communities, but moderation at scale remains unresolved. Bluesky saw a 17x increase in moderation reports in 2024. Mastodon instances clash over norms. X has community notes. No protocol has fully solved this.

2. Centralization creep: Even decentralized systems can re-centralize. Farcaster depends heavily on Base (Coinbase). Bluesky’s governance is corporate-backed. The “centralization paradox” looms.

3. Economic sustainability: Token models risk speculation. Steemit imploded. Zora’s surge in token launches could be short-lived (its too early to tell). Donation-based models may lack scale. A middle ground is unproven.

4. Fragmentation: Competing protocols (ActivityPub, AT, Nostr, Lens, Farcaster) risk Balkanization. Without bridges, network effects may be diluted and the internet overall can become more siloed.

5. Big Tech co-option: Meta’s Threads shows the risk of incumbents embracing standards only to dominate them. Some Fediverse admins have blocked Meta preemptively.

6. Regulation & geopolitics: Examples like EU Digital Markets Act and Brazil’s bans have led to digital migration, showing governments’ influence on adoption. Physical migration policies shape a nation, digital migration policies shape online social graphs.

7. UX and onboarding: Let us not forget the importance of UX as a bottleneck (keys, wallets, moderation friction), as decentralization becomes mainstream.

8. Cultural adoption: Consider how subcultures (crypto Twitter, Bitcoiners, artists, activists) act as carriers for these platforms, just as artists IRL supplant themselves into less desirable neighborhoods, eventually helping to uplift urban renewal.

Some argue decentralization may never beat centralization on UX and network effects. Instead, it may survive as a niche - “parallel stack” for those who care about sovereignty. Having the option to exit is better than being stuck with no options at all. Ultimately, that is what makes a parallel citizen 😉

Implications

For those curious about decentralized social, there are some practice implications:

• Identity portability: Protocol-based networks allow you to carry your audience across apps. This is a hedge against platform risk.

• Community governance: Federated models let communities set rules, useful for enclaves or network states experimenting with digital constitutions.

• Economic primitives: Frames, creator coins, and tokenized posts enable micro-economies. These tools can fund enclaves, media projects, or DAOs without relying on ads. They even help fund this blog!

• Geopolitical resilience: Decentralized platforms are harder for states to censor or ban. Brazil’s suspension of X in 2024 triggered a 3M-user surge to Bluesky in a week. This resilience matters for cross-border communities.

Open Questions

1. Will ActivityPub consolidate? If Threads, Mastodon, Tumblr, and others interoperate smoothly, ActivityPub could dominate as a non-blockchain, decentralized solution.

2. Can Base become the default rail? Its growth is rapid, and integration with CoinBase acts as a smooth on-ramp. An early mover advantage on both fronts (crypto exchange and DeFi Layer 2), might make CoinBase and Base an important bridge between the fiat and crypto world.

3. Will moderation find a balance? Solutions range from AI filtering to community courts. The outcome will shape adoption.

4. Can token economies mature? Zora and Farcaster’s experiments may either stabilize into creator income streams, or wither into speculation.

5. Regulatory response: The EU’s Digital Markets Act pushes for interoperability. A crackdown on crypto rails could stall growth. Or, the network supersedes the state, as P2P file transfer did in the early 2000s (though, the founders of The Pirate Bay did face criminal penalties).

It’s worth watching the leading indicators: user growth rates post-exoduses (Twitter, TikTok bans, elections), daily active wallets on Base, bridges between protocols (e.g. AT ↔ ActivityPub), and funding patterns in the space.

Conclusion: The Long Arc of DeSo

Across fifteen years, decentralized social media has unfolded in waves of experiment and iteration. The early federation era (Identi.ca, Diaspora, Friendica) proved the concept of user-owned identity, even if the UX kept them niche. Mastodon and the wider Fediverse gave those ideas traction, surging after Twitter’s collapse into chaos, but exposed the fault lines of moderation and fragmentation. Blockchain projects like Steemit, Hive, Minds, and later DeSo tried to graft incentives onto social, sparking both innovation and revolt. Mirror and Paragraph stretched the model into publishing economies, while Scuttlebutt and Peepeth pushed peer-to-peer edges.

The protocol turn of 2022–2025 reframed the field. Lens, Farcaster, CyberConnect, Nostr, and Bluesky all focused less on platforms than on rails - composable layers where identity and graphs could be portable, modular, and economically programmable. Coinbase’s Base accelerated that shift, turning creator economies into daily on-chain flows. What emerges from this lineage is not a single successor to Facebook or Twitter, but a pluralistic stack: some federated, some financialized, some minimalist, some corporate-adjacent.

Federation’s UX failures led to blockchain experiments. Blockchain’s governance experiments introduced protocols. Protocols’ adoption hurdles are inspiring infra consolidation (Base). Each experiment laid groundwork, each revolt reshaped governance assumptions, and each breakthrough widened the design space. Decentralized social has unfolded as a scattered but persistent evolution toward a user-owned social graph.

The future of DeSo isn’t a single killer app, but a resilience strategy: an escape hatch from the centralized feed. That parallel stack may remain niche, or it may one day be the default. Either way, the arc is bending toward user sovereignty.

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  Decentralized Social Media 101: A Creator Flywheel (you can get this guide for free if you own my creator coins! See product page for more details)

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Article Summary:

📡 Proto-Federation (2008–2015): Identi.ca, StatusNet, Diaspora, Friendica → vision without scale.
🌍 Fediverse Breakthrough (2016): Mastodon → the first sticky UX.
⛓️ Blockchain Experiments (2016–2019): Steemit, Minds, Scuttlebutt → tokens and P2P.
🔥 Speculation & Revolt (2020–2021): Hive, Mirror, BitClout/DeSo → value capture and governance battles.
🪢 Protocol Era (2022–2023): Lens, Farcaster, Nostr, Bluesky → composable social graphs, minimal protocols, federated identity.
🏗️ Infrastructure Consolidation (2023–2025): Base, L2s → scaling the rails.

Understanding Digital Fentanyl

Every society has a drug-defining era, an intoxicant that captures the zeitgeist and reshapes public life. For 19th-century China, it was opium. For industrial Britain, gin. In our time, the defining drug isn't a molecule but a medium:
the infinite doomscroll.

Alexander Good’s Doom Thesis is stark in its simplicity: AI development, instead of fueling a new productivity boom, is being channeled into the attention economy of hyper-personalized feeds, AI chatbots as companions, immersive pornography, and infinite-scroll generative worlds. These become what he and others call digital fentanyl: endlessly addictive, minimally productive, engineered to extract engagement rather than create value.

Rather than AI acting as a strong deflationary force in our economy, fighting money printing and in the fullness of time promising utopia for pennies, the doom thesis assumes AI will instead make overall productivity worse. That is, an AI-era internet is so addictive and enticing that it consumes large swaths of cognitive and physical bandwidth, stunting the growth of entire economies.

This isn’t conspiracy theory, but a model with the following logic:

• AI runs on distraction, not productivity → the business model fueling LLMs is ads, subscriptions, and engagement, not real economic output.

• Distraction becomes the most profitable commodity → hyper-personalized loops of content, games, and social interaction optimized for addiction.

• LLMs differ from past AI dreams → instead of self-driving cars, we get infinitely adaptive attention traps that mirror us back to ourselves.

• Personalized Addictive World Generators (PAWGs) → Good’s shorthand for immersive, tailored digital worlds where people spend nearly all waking hours.

• Digital fentanyl, not digital weed → constant iteration and memory make these loops stronger over time, pulling users deeper into synthetic presence.

• Economic paradox → AI profits soar while global GDP growth stagnates because distraction doesn’t create productivity, only monetized attention.

• The death of employability → beyond job loss, chronic distraction erodes the capacity to work or focus at all; attention becomes the scarcest skill.

• The existential doom → society trades liberation for curated captivity, with humans increasingly unfit for meaningful participation in real life.

What trends already point us in that direction? We don’t have to look far:

• Teenagers and adults are logging 6 – 8 hours daily on their phones, a trend that has broadly risen since the 2010s.

• Doomscrolling late into the night is affecting sleep quality and mental health en-masse, despite better intentions.

• Scaling startups are monetizing AI girlfriends whose primary innovation is emotional manipulation designed to keep users engaged.

The intelligence age accelerates individual capability and autonomy, but also allows for a sinister and complex hijacking of the pleasure and reward centers in the brain. However, Good’s thesis is not necessarily destiny. There is a chance we can contest it, if only to save our wits from ourselves.

Why Civilizational Bandwidth is Being Hijacked Now

Technology inherently is not “good” or “evil”. We’ve always lived with dual-use technologies. The printing press could distribute Luther’s Reformation pamphlets, or the Inquisition’s propaganda. Radio could broadcast Mozart, or Goebbels. Television could air Sesame Street, or 24-hour cable outrage. AI is just the next medium in the sequence, but with two key differences:

1. Scale. Models generate infinite tailored content for billions simultaneously.

2. Precision. No two doomscrolls are alike. Each feed is a fingerprint of your vulnerabilities and your unconscious shadow.

Meanwhile, global headwinds intensify the stakes:

• USD decline. The dollar’s share of global reserves has dropped from ~70% two decades ago to ~58%. Nations increasingly trade in yuan, euro, or CBDCs. Monetary fragmentation undermines the U.S. leverage that underpinned the last 70 years.

• Multipolar geopolitics. Pax Americana is waning. China asserts regional dominance; India ascends; Europe hedges; America polarizes.

• Demographics. The youngest generations, those who will inherit this splintered order, are also the most immersed in algorithmically curated worlds.

We roughly have until 2030. I say this not just because it’s a round number, but because by then, many AI researchers believe we will be close to, or have hit the AI singularity. We will be well past pax-Americana and the global dollar hegemony. A half decade is probably a good runway for AI to seep into mainstreams app adoption, interfaces, and devices. It’s also more than enough time for AI algorithms to get incredibly good at understanding what captivates your attention, energy, and focus.

We don’t really know what life looks like then, but it is certain that existing trends will accelerate the momentum of change. AI adoption will cause macro shifts in the meaning of money, work, life satisfaction, and technological advancement. Despite sounding doomer, this isn’t fear mongering. It’s about what happens when civilizational bandwidth gets hijacked at the same time as when global coordination is perhaps splintering when it is most needed.

The Doom Thesis in Three Futures

I frame three scenarios for the Doom thesis playing out: Bear, Bull, & Base cases.

Bear Case: Addiction Supercycle

In this trajectory, Good is vindicated. By 2030:

• Average screen time approaches its upper possible limit, 8+ hours per day.

• GDP growth stagnates despite trillions invested in AI and technology.

• AI companions replace real socialization; generative porn outpaces generative productivity. Birth rates continue to drop off a cliff.

• U.S. soft power collapses as domestic politics dissolve into algorithmic psy-ops. Much of online content is AI-generated and algorithmically driven

• The world’s most valuable companies are not infrastructure builders but casino architects with better slot machines.

Social fabric frays. Students can’t concentrate, workers burn out, mental health crises increase. Civilizational bandwidth is spent in algorithmic amusement parks. As Good put it: “Everyone will be spending all of their time in highly addictive generative worlds”. This world feels very techno-feudalist, except the modern peasant isn’t renting their labour to work on land for produce, labor, and protection. Rather, they are renting their minds to attention-capturing hyper stimuli that captively brainwash the individual. At least AI ads convert more reliably with personalized sales funnels created just for you!

Bull Case: The Reclamation

In the optimistic path, humanity re-channels some of the AI efforts into productivity, health, and collective flourishing:

• Enterprise AI drives global GDP up 7% across the decade.

• AI tutors democratize education. AI doctors slash diagnostic error. AI assistants become ubiquitous work multipliers.

• Local AI models running on device act as cognitive firewalls helping the user avoid hyper-stimuli that would otherwise draw them into addictive loops.

• Regulation intervenes: China’s game curfews, Utah’s social media curfew law, the EU’s AI Act proactively start banning manipulative loops.

• Cultural norms flip. Digital wellness becomes high status, like fitness was in the 2010s. Being offline and less reachable becomes a status symbol.

Here, AI is more humbly integrated as a tool, not a master. The attention economy loses prestige, we find ways to build our own agency, and re-claim our time. Productivity is a reflection of a more capable, working population.

Base Case: The Patchwork of Futures

What I feel is perhaps more probable is something in the messy middle:

• Distraction AI coexists with productivity AI. A real bifurcation happens between people who can manage their executive functioning in light of hyper stimuli, and those who cannot, and get one shotted by addiction to the point of anhedonia.

• Some geographies enforce sabbaths (China, EU); others with their staunch individualism, maintain a more laissez-faire approach (U.S.).

• Class divides widen: elites firewall their kids from distraction, working classes rely on AI babysitters (the new iPad kids), losing cognitive agency to endless interactive consumption.

• Intentional communities codify discipline: network states where members constitutionally limit screen time, build real world social groups and norms. Perhaps most ironically, DAOs that reward offline hours with tokens. I’m not sure if “capitalism solves this”, but what a neat way to incentivize and socially status signal your offline-hood via online means 😆

Consider the physical laws surrounding digital borders and access rules:

• Casino Cities (addiction loops, 24 hour cities).

• Discipline Enclaves (network states, crypto-firewalled communities).

• Analog Revival Zones (cultural countercurrents, slow media).

• Hybrid Commons (AI used for productivity but with guardrails).

Result: not uniform doom, not uniform renaissance, but divergence. A patchwork of distraction dystopias and productivity enclaves. If the internet increases variance, AI exponentially bifurcates the trend. Just as hyper-palatable food has drifted so many people towards metabolic dysfunction, so too can hyper-stimulating content drift many towards cognitive dysfunction as a default function of modernity.

Cultural Countercurrents:
Laws, Norms, Status

Even in the bear-case drift, counter-movements flicker signs of corrective hope.

• China’s curfews. Since 2021, Chinese minors have been locked out of games after 10 p.m. Official reports claimed youth gaming addiction was “basically resolved”.

• Screen-free parenting. In the U.S. and Europe, parents now treat devices like dessert, not diet.

• Analog revival. Film photography, vinyl records, paper journals. Imperfect, tactile mediums as cultural counterpoints to glossy algorithmic feeds.

• Digital hygiene as luxury. Elites already firewall their kids from screens. The Silicon Valley CEO who builds attention traps sends their child to a sort of Waldorf school with no devices.

Consider briefly the current state of these things. Law: Most Western countries generally seem to be against the government imposing social media or gaming blackout periods. Norms: Cultural norms are well embedded in online social media, based on memetic popularity and engagement. Status: It’s also much easier to status boost online with a reach of thousands, versus doing so in person with a reach of perhaps dozens of people. While it might be more fulfilling and enriching to have deeper in-person relationships, its hard to convince someone that the pursuit of touching grass is worth stepping away from poasting terminally online. Engaging with a following thats orders of magnitude larger only than in person, makes it hard to revert back to in-person status games.

The Crypto-AI Nexus:
Governance and Escape Velocity

Crypto is the parallel infrastructure to AI’s addiction loops. OS Addictivo (AI attention engines) and OS Autonomia (crypto protocols and local firewalls).

Projects like Post Fiat propose agentic protocols: AI entities that pay for compute in tokens, govern themselves, and resolve disputes on-chain. These could become the autonomous corporations of the AI age.

But crypto inherits the same fork of possibilities:

• If tokens flow into AI casinos, the gamblification of everything, and generative porn, the Doom Thesis compounds.

• If tokens flow into firewall AIs: Decentralized, locally-run models that filter addictive media, crypto becomes the immune system against digital fentanyl.

Crypto is the exit hatch and the amplifier. Liquidity flows not just as capital but as culture, and the channels it carves become the new branches of humanity. The choice to adopt and use these tools is not accidental - it must be made consciously with intention.

Autonomy vs. Belonging

This is the ancient tension between the individual and the group. How much autonomy are we willing to surrender to reclaim sovereignty from addiction engines?

• Individuals can delete apps, buy dumb phones, or run local LLMs that strip addictive features.

• Communities can enforce sabbaths, token-incentivize, culturally enforce offline life, or build digital-minimalist network states with offline living as a key health consideration and moral innovation, at the forefront.

• Nations can legislate curfews, design bans, and liability laws, but at the cost of personal freedom.

Freedom without discipline is likely to lead to cognitive capture. Pure autonomy can easily default to enslavement under algorithms. Collective sovereignty requires collective rules, where the enforcement depends more on the socio-cultural fabric of society, rather than placing the burden of resisting temptation completely on the individual. Every individual and group will have to wrestle with striking the balance between having digital autonomy and following (or choosing not to follow) collectively enforced rules to prevent fallibility to hyper-stimuli.

Empowering Resilience

Individual

• Audit your digital diet like calories: track screen time, not steps.

• Anchor yourself in analog rituals: journaling, martial arts, hiking.

• Experiment with emerging mainstream options to run local AIs as firewalls from distraction and mindless consumption. In a podcast, Vitalik lays out his concept of d/acc: a stance that pushes back against risks by favoring defense-oriented tech and decentralization rather than centralized control. Vitalk says “if you’re going to regulate AI, then explicitly exempt anything that just runs locally on realistic consumer hardware. And so making that explicit separation between smaller‑scale stuff and top‑of‑the‑line big corp stuff ”. In essence, it’d be nice to use small, local AI models as a continuously learning cognitive firewall to prevent attention capture, when we are online!

Community

• Codify digital sabbaths. Be it laws, rules, or guidelines.

• Incentivize offline activity. Allow for the proliferation of third spaces: gardens, gyms, local clubs.

• Acknowledge the cognitive bandwidth capture if we get sucked into our devices, and how it can affect the collective mental health of a population - one that is chronically under-slept, overstimulated, and emotionally anhedonic.

Doom can Bloom with Discipline

Good’s Doomer Thesis is not prophecy, but like many things in life, acts as a reflective mirror showing multiple possibilities. It reflects the direction we’re generally sliding towards, since by 2030, AI will be very powerful and distributed everywhere. The question isn’t whether AI growth explodes - that it will. The real question is whether we thrive with it, or whether it thrives at our expense.

The paradox: doom can be useful. Naming the addiction sharpens our resistance. Shedding light on the ways in which our reptilian brain is getting hijacked is a big first step. Framing the thesis gives us an explicit choose. The antidote to digital fentanyl isn’t just better regulations, enforcement, cultural norms, or healthier apps. It’s better discipline. And discipline, when practiced collectively, might be how individual freedom survives.

Support the Blog:

• You can own Parallel Citizen’s creator coin on Zora

• You can also collect this post as a Zora token here

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Sponsors:

(purchasing through these links helps support the blog)

• Trezor - Open-source hardware wallets for sovereign custody

Article Summary:

💊 The Substance → personalized addictive world generators (PAWGs).
🤝 The Dealer → AI platforms optimizing engagement.
🚀 The High → endless novelty, synthetic intimacy.
😵‍💫 The Withdrawal → collapse of attention, employability, civic bandwidth.
🏡 The Rehab → intentional communities, local AI firewalls, cultural countercurrents, discipline.

This post was inspired by Varun’s and Vitalik’s blog posts.

The promise of Web3 has always been a more decentralized, user-owned internet - a radical departure from the walled gardens and algorithmic overlords of Web2.

I’m embracing the vision by posting on platforms like Paragraph, Zora, and Farcaster (follow, say hi! I will at times post original content on those platforms).

But the journey toward a truly decentralized stack isn’t a straight path; it’s a complex dance between ideals and realities, where centralization by necessity can creep in at unexpected layers. The question then becomes: where do the choke points for decentralization truly lie, and where does centralization actually make sense? These are key considerations when considering network ownership, risk, adoption, and failsafes.

This isn’t about denouncing either poles of the spectrum, but rather acknowledging network engineering is complex in nature. You might have sufficient decentralization in one area, only to find a critical bottleneck in another. Let’s peel back the layers of our digital infrastructure, from most abstract to most tangible, and scrutinize each for its vulnerabilities and virtues.

The Layers of the Stack:
Choke Points and Compromises

Email Lists: The First Digital ID

Before Web2 platforms dominated, email lists were a primary mode of digital communication. But traditional email is fundamentally centralized, relying on large service providers like Google, Microsoft, or independent servers that can be targeted, censored, or shut down. Your digital presence, your direct line to your audience and contacts, often rests on a single point of failure. It’s unlikely for now, but Google’s track record of sunsetting products in the past can rightfully bring some worries about the integrity of your Gmail inbox.

In the Web3 world, efforts are underway to decentralize this fundamental layer. Projects like Mailchain, EtherMail, and iExec Web3Mail are building protocols for blockchain-based email, promising end-to-end encryption, user privacy, and censorship resistance by leveraging decentralized storage and blockchain identities. EtherMail, for instance, offers "email-as-a-wallet" functionality, allowing crypto transactions directly from the inbox. Other known providers include HashMail and DMail Network.

While these platforms offer a compelling vision, widespread adoption remains a challenge, as users are accustomed to the seamless, albeit centralized experience of traditional email. The user experience hurdle here is significant: convincing billions to migrate from familiar interfaces to a new paradigm of cryptographic keys and wallet ownership. It’s easy enough today to access email recovery options with current options, but losing private keys or exposing them can mean exposing an entire email chain history to a malicious third party, or losing access to your email address altogether (there are solutions to this, see forward secrecy).

Private Keys: Sovereignty or Burden?

At the very core of Web3 ownership lies the private key, the cryptographic secret that grants control over your digital assets and identity. "Not your keys, not your coins" is a pervasive mantra. Self-custody offers unparalleled sovereignty, meaning you and only you control your funds. This is the purest form of decentralization at the individual level.

However, with power comes responsibility. Lose your private key or seed phrase, and your assets are gone forever, with no customer support hotline to call. This "human error" vulnerability is a significant decentralization choke point, as it places the entire burden of security squarely on the end-user. This complexity often pushes users towards custodial solutions offered by centralized exchanges, which manage private keys on your behalf. While convenient and offering recovery options, these solutions reintroduce the very centralization Web3 seeks to avoid, exposing users to the risks of hacks, insolvency, or censorship by a third party. The trade-off between user convenience and absolute self-sovereignty is stark and defines much of the Web3 user experience challenges. However, there are social recovery possibilities emerging:

• Smart social recovery. Vitalik’s argument is simple: self-custody should not mean single-point-of-failure. Social recovery uses “guardians” you choose, with a time delay and clear on-chain rules so you can regain access if you lose your signer, while keeping day-to-day control yourself. See his primer on social recovery wallets. Wallets like Argent and Safe ship this today.

• Account abstraction (ERC-4337). Vitalik’s “three transitions” put wallet security front and center: move users to smart-contract wallets that can do recovery, session keys, spending limits, and gas abstraction by design. This removes seed-phrase roulette for normal people. Read The Three Transitions and the Ethereum.org overview of account abstraction.

• MPC and passkeys as UX relief. Multi-party computation splits a key across devices or services so no single party can move funds. Paired with passkeys and recovery modules, you get “no seed phrase” onboarding with non-custodial guarantees. See Safe’s recovery work and paymasters, plus passkey-aware flows in builder docs like Candide’s recovery module.

• Community recovery and reputation. The DeSoc paper by Ohlhaver, Weyl, and Buterin explores non-transferable credentials and community recovery as building blocks for humane self-custody and Sybil-resistant governance. Definitely worth a read if you care about long-run legitimacy and “who vouches for whom”.

Blockchains: Decentralized by Design, Centralized by Necessity

The underlying blockchain is often considered the bedrock of decentralization. Layer 1s (e.g., Ethereum) aim for broad decentralization through distributed consensus. However, as these networks scale, new centralization vectors emerge.

Layer 2 (L2) scaling solutions, such as rollups (Optimism, Arbitrum, Base, zkSync Era, Linea, Polygon zkEVM, Scroll, and more), process transactions off-chain in batches before submitting them to the L1. While this significantly increases throughput and reduces costs, most L2s currently rely on centralized "sequencers". These sequencers collect, order, and batch transactions, introducing a single point of failure and potential for censorship or "maximal extractable value" (MEV) extraction. If a centralized sequencer goes down, the entire L2 network can halt. While projects like Metis and shared sequencers (e.g., Espresso) are working on decentralizing this role, it highlights how even within a core blockchain layer, practical scaling solutions can introduce centralization. The Nakamoto Coefficient is one way to measure decentralization across the blockchain stack, for other public blockchain projects (Bitcoin, Solana, etc).

Platforms: The Social Graph and Beyond

The comparison between Farcaster and X is a prime example of the platform layer's complexities. X is the quintessential centralized platform: user data, content, and the social graph are owned and controlled by a single corporation. Monetization, moderation, and feature development are all dictated from a central authority. Farcaster, on the other hand, embodies a decentralized social protocol. It leverages on-chain identity (FIDs), off-chain "casts" (tweets), and an open protocol that allows anyone to build clients. The social graph itself is more open and less susceptible to the whims of a single company.

However, even in Farcaster's architecture, there are nuances. While the protocol is open, the initial user experience still often relies on centralized client applications like Warpcast. The underlying infrastructure for storing "casts" and user data, even if distributed, still requires reliable hosting and indexing. The challenge is striking a balance between decentralization, scalability, and a user experience that can compete with the polish of centralized giants. Farcaster's strength lies in its protocol-level decentralization, empowering developers to innovate on the client layer without permission, a stark contrast to X's closed ecosystem.

A social network achieves sufficient decentralization if two users can find each other and communicate, even if the rest of the network wants to prevent it.
-Varun Srinivasan

Markets: From Bazaar to OpenBazaar

Traditional marketplaces like Amazon or eBay are deeply centralized, controlling listings, payments, and dispute resolution. Decentralized marketplaces (who can forget the early predecessor, Silk Road) aim to remove these intermediaries, allowing peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions with greater transparency and lower fees. Platforms like OpenBazaar (though it has faced challenges) demonstrated the concept of trading goods without central oversight.

The advantages are clear: smart contracts can automate escrows, ensuring payments are released only upon transaction completion, and cryptographic payments remove traditional payment providers. Yet, these marketplaces face their own set of centralization challenges. Building trust in a permissionless environment without central authority for dispute resolution is difficult. While review systems and reputation tracking are being implemented, replicating the perceived security and efficiency of centralized customer service remains a hurdle. Furthermore, the reliance on tokens for governance or utility can also introduce new forms of economic centralization if token distribution becomes concentrated.

Apps (and App Stores): The Digital Gatekeepers

A recent Google policy change (Aug 2025) came under fire, as a prime example of centralization at the application distribution layer (Google since provided a clarification). Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store act as powerful gatekeepers, dictating terms, taking significant cuts from transactions, and having the power to delist applications. This control extends to content, payment rails, and the very existence of an app on a user's device.

In Web3, the vision is "dApps" (decentralized applications) that can be accessed directly via web browsers or specialized Web3 browsers, bypassing traditional app stores entirely. Projects like StepN (a move-to-earn game) and Gnosis Pay (a decentralized payment network integrated with Visa) show how dApps can offer new models of ownership and rewards, directly challenging Web2 paradigms. However, user onboarding to dApps can be notoriously complex, often requiring specific wallet setups and a deeper understanding of blockchain mechanics. This complexity can push dApp developers to make compromises for easier user access, potentially leveraging centralized services for parts of their stack.

Wallets: The User Interface to Your Digital Assets

Wallets are the interface to the blockchain, holding your private keys and facilitating transactions. The choice between a custodial and non-custodial wallet heavily influences the degree of decentralization, backup optionality, fees, and end-user experiences.

Custodial wallets (like those on centralized exchanges) offer ease of use, account recovery, and often a familiar interface. They abstract away the complexity of private key management, making them popular for beginners. However, they mean you're trusting a third party with your funds, reintroducing a central point of control and vulnerability.

Non-custodial wallets (like Phantom, hardware wallets) give users full control over their private keys. This is the true decentralized option, but it demands technical understanding and meticulous security practices. The user experience for non-custodial wallets can be daunting for newcomers, involving seed phrases, gas fees, and complex transaction approvals. The ongoing challenge for Web3 is to build non-custodial wallets that are as secure as they are user-friendly, bridging the gap between absolute self-sovereignty and mainstream usability.

UX/UI: The Unsung Centralizer

Perhaps one of the most significant, yet often overlooked choke points for decentralization is the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI). Web2 platforms have perfected intuitive, seamless experiences that abstract away technical complexities. Web3, by its very nature, exposes users to concepts like gas fees, transaction confirmations, network congestion, and private key management.

The current state of Web3 UX often creates a high barrier to entry, making it difficult for mass adoption. Complex wallet connection processes, unclear visual language, and a lack of educational materials overwhelm new users. Many Web3 projects prioritize "protocol-first" development, with UX/UI often taking a backseat. This inadvertently pushes users towards more centralized solutions that offer familiar ease of use, even if it means sacrificing decentralization. The pursuit of a truly decentralized internet requires a revolutionary leap in UX design that makes self-custody and on-chain interactions as simple, if not simpler, than their centralized counterparts.

Other Critical Infrastructure Layers

Beyond the obvious layers, several other components of the digital infrastructure stack can introduce centralization between the end-user and a "decentralized" protocol:

• DNS (Domain Name System): The internet's phonebook, which translates human-readable domain names into IP addresses, is largely centralized through ICANN and domain registries. While Web3 domains (e.g., Ethereum Name Service (ENS), Unstoppable Domains) aim to decentralize this by registering domains on a blockchain as NFTs, the vast majority of web access still relies on traditional DNS. A fully decentralized web would require a pervasive decentralized DNS.

• RPC Nodes (Remote Procedure Call): DApps interact with blockchains via RPC nodes. While anyone can run a node, many dApp developers rely on centralized RPC providers (like Alchemy or Infura) for scalability and reliability. This means that a dApp, even if its smart contracts are on-chain, can have a centralized point of failure or censorship if its primary RPC provider decides to block access or goes offline. Decentralized RPC networks are emerging to address this, but running your own node currently requires significant technical expertise and resources.

• CDNs (Content Delivery Networks): Most websites, including many Web3 frontends, rely on CDNs (like Cloudflare) to deliver content quickly. While beneficial for performance, CDNs are centralized entities that can be subject to censorship or denial-of-service attacks.

• Oracles: Decentralized applications often need real-world data (e.g., price feeds) to execute smart contracts. Oracles provide this data, and if the oracle network itself is centralized, it creates a single point of truth and potential manipulation, even if the smart contract is decentralized.

• DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks): This emerging category focuses on decentralizing real-world infrastructure like wireless networks, data storage, and computing power. By incentivizing individuals to contribute physical resources via blockchain tokens, DePIN aims to mitigate centralization choke points in fundamental infrastructure, shifting from centralized landlords of compute to a distributed, community-owned model. A "Great API Purge" scenario where AI startups built on rented compute get crushed by centralized platform landlords, highlights the criticality of decentralized infrastructure, and mirroring the importance of how Bitcoin solved money and payment centralization.

• Social Layer: Pick a threat model, then install guardrails. If you refuse custodial risk yet want adult-proofing, combine a smart account with social recovery, set spending limits, and keep at least one out-of-band device as a guardian. The question to ask is not “custodial or not,” it is “what are my escape hatches if this wallet, this L2, or this client fails.”

Centralization by Design

Following the Middleware Thesis (2023), the true bottleneck for crypto adoption isn’t raw scalability but the absence of middleware stacks that make blockchain rails usable for everyday applications. The thesis predicted that purpose-built, vertically integrated chains would emerge to serve specific functions like payments, social, and gaming, rather than relying on generic base layers.

As Robinhood, Circle, and Stripe roll out their own chains, we’re watching the thesis crystallize: these firms aren’t chasing decentralization purity, they’re building middleware that leverages blockchain efficiency while maintaining the centralization needed for compliance, stability, and user trust.

Stripe’s stablecoin payments, for example, are less about becoming a “crypto company” and more about embedding programmable money into an existing global payments stack. This doesn’t negate decentralization’s importance, it clarifies the terrain: centralization can coexist with blockchain rails when it delivers real-world usability, so long as the core principles of censorship resistance and user sovereignty remain protected at the edges.

Conclusion: The Spectrum of Decentralization

The journey toward a truly decentralized internet is far from over. As we've explored, "decentralization" is not a binary state but a spectrum, with choke points and centralizing forces existing at nearly every layer of the digital stack:

• Email lists still largely rely on centralized providers, though Web3 alternatives are emerging.

• Private keys offer ultimate sovereignty but demand significant user responsibility, often pushing users towards convenient, yet centralized, custodial solutions.

• Blockchains, particularly Layer 2s, often rely on centralized sequencers for efficiency, creating potential bottlenecks.

• Platforms, even those like Farcaster, navigate the tension between open protocols and the need for user-friendly, often centralized, client applications.

• Markets grapple with building trust and dispute resolution in a permissionless environment.

• Apps and App Stores remain highly centralized gatekeepers, though dApps offer an alternative, albeit with significant UX hurdles.

• Wallets present a clear trade-off between user convenience (custodial) and absolute control (non-custodial).

• UX/UI itself is a major centralizing force, as the inherent complexity of Web3 drives users to simpler, often centralized, solutions.

• Underlying infrastructure like DNS, RPC nodes, and CDNs are often centralized, posing hidden choke points. DePIN offers a promising path to decentralize some of these physical layers.

• Social layers where we need tech-savvy communities, companies, and services that allow for better custody, social recovery, and exit strategies in case of technical or cultural failures.

The core thesis remains: true decentralization requires addressing these chokepoints across all layers, which isn’t necessarily a nearsighted goal of crypto and digital infrastructure comprising the internet. However, decentralization requires innovative solutions that balance the ideals of sovereignty and censorship resistance with the practicalities of scalability, usability, and mainstream adoption. While some centralization might be a necessary compromise for user experience or specific enterprise needs (as seen with Stripe), a vigilant eye must be kept on ensuring that these compromises don't undermine the fundamental ethos of a user-owned, permissionless internet.

The future of the internet will likely be a hybrid one, but the ongoing effort to push the boundaries of decentralization, layer by layer, is paramount for building a truly resilient and equitable digital future.

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Article Summary:

🧩 Sufficient Decentralization → A Practical Lens
Borrowing Varun’s test and Vitalik’s wallet ideas, judge systems by three things: can users find each other, keep identity portable, and exit cleanly when parts fail.🕸️ The Stack Has Chokepoints
Email, keys, L2 sequencers, app stores, RPC, DNS, CDNs, and oracles all concentrate power, even when protocols are open; Farcaster keeps identity on-chain with client choice while most L2s still hinge on a single sequencer.
🛡️ Build For Recovery And Exit
Use smart accounts with social recovery and MPC, diversify infra and RPCs, favor auditable bridges and clear withdrawal guarantees, document break-glass paths so users can leave a client, an L2, or a provider without losing their graph.
🧪 Middleware Over Maximalism
Expect hybrid stacks where fintech rails chase compliance and UX, DePIN pushes storage and compute to the edges, and sovereignty survives when control sits with users, governance is transparent, and exits remain cheap.

Demography is destiny - Auguste Comte

In 2025, the digital nomad lifestyle is no longer an experiment. It’s a mature, self-sustaining class of global citizens.

Among many successful solo projects, serial entrepreneur and indie developer Pieter Levels is famous for his startup NomadList: a website and online community designed to help digital nomads and remote workers find the best places to live and work around the world. It provides data-driven insights and resources to aid in location scouting, cost of living comparisons, and connection with other remote professionals.

Recently, Nomadlist released a 2025 snapshot: Who is the average nomad in 2025?

As one of the largest and most diverse sample statistics on digital nomads around the world, this data is a treasure trove in better understanding the typical demographics of digital nomads. In this post, we're going to dissect this report, address gaps, and provide some guidelines that might help builders and digital nomads; towards mutual alignment and building more permanent communities.

Understanding Displacement

There's different types of migration and different reasons why people would move or be displaced. Knowing the differences clarifies who we’re actually talking about. Digital nomads and early-adopters in network state-adjacent movements are likely to fall in the voluntary and seasonal/temporary migration categories.

However, as the ongoing collapse of the US Dollar and an emerging multi-polar world unfolds in the coming decades, we are likely to see greater levels of human displacement and mass migration (for various reasons, although a deeper dive is outside of the scope of this article). Below is a list of 7 types of human migration, with examples:

1. Voluntary Migration

• Definition: Migration based on personal choice, typically for economic, lifestyle, or educational opportunities.

• Includes:

  • Economic migration (e.g., Indian tech worker in Canada)

  • Lifestyle migration (e.g., remote workers moving to Bali)

  • Retirement migration (e.g., Canadians moving to Mexico)

  • Return migration (e.g., students or workers returning to home country)

  • Network migration (e.g., relocating based on ideological or moral vectors)

2. Involuntary (Forced) Migration

• Definition: Movement compelled by external threats such as conflict, persecution, or disasters. Not a true choice.

• Includes:

  • Refugees (protected under international law)

  • Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) (displaced within their own country)

  • Asylum seekers (awaiting refugee status)

  • Climate or environmental migrants (due to drought, flooding, etc.)

  • Human trafficking victims (coerced migration for exploitation)

3. Mixed Migration

• Definition: Migration driven by a mix of voluntary and forced factors.

• Example: A Venezuelan fleeing economic collapse and authoritarianism; not clearly one or the other.

4. Seasonal or Temporary Migration

• Definition: Migration tied to time-bound work, education, or weather.

• Includes:

  • Seasonal labor migration (e.g., farm workers)

  • Circular migration (repeating movement between countries)

  • Student migration (temporary study abroad)

5. Internal Migration

• Definition: Movement within national borders.

• Includes:

  • Rural-to-urban migration (e.g., urbanization trends in India or China)

  • Urban-to-rural migration (counter-urbanization)

  • Post-conflict resettlement (people returning to their original homes)

6. Stateless Persons

• Definition: Individuals who are not recognized as citizens by any country, often resulting in long-term displacement or migration.

• Example: Rohingya people from Myanmar, denied citizenship and displaced into Bangladesh.

7. Historical or Colonial Migration

• Definition: Migration shaped by historical forces such as slavery, colonization, and empire.

• Includes:

  • Slave trade (e.g., Africans to the Americas)

  • Indentured labor (e.g., Indians to the Caribbean)

  • Colonial settlers (e.g., British migration to Australia)

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When examining digital nomads, we are looking at voluntary migration (subtype: network migration) and seasonal or temporary migration (subtype: circular migration). This kind of migration currently happens most often for generally privileged, sovereign individuals who relocate for an overall better quality of life. Although, we can expect to see other types of migration become more relevant with increasing demographic displacement as politics, economics, climate change and other factors affect global mobility and one’s decision to stay, or leave.

There is a reasonable quality of existing data on digital nomad demographics, a group most closely aligned with crypto-native frontier experimenters. The other types of human migration mentioned above also pose their own unique sets of challenges. For example, emerging network state polities likely wouldn’t focus on attracting asylum seekers or refugees, simply because the humanitarian needs of these emigrants, while very real, are incompatible with what a growing experimental community building on the frontier might have to offer them.

Highlights: The Typical Nomad in 2025

From the Nomadlist report:

• Age and education. The most common age is 36. Most digital nomads are well into their career, ranging from mid twenties up to early forties. Roughly nine in ten have higher education.

• Income and employment. Median income sits around $85k USD, with a large six-figure segment. Employment skews to full-time roles plus a sizable founder and freelancer contingent.

• Work setting. The majority work from a home office or a co-working space, not a beach. Despite traveling around, once they are settled into a new locale, digital nomads tend to prefer routine, and that includes having a regular work setup.

• Politics and dating. Men split between progressive, libertarian and centrist identities with very few conservatives. Women lean even more progressive. The overall ethos is secular, with a minority identifying as spiritual. Two-thirds of nomads are single; navigating intimacy and friendships on the road.

• Comms and coordination. Across different messaging apps on the internet, there’s plenty of evidence for large digital diasporas of varying groups and channels, loosely themed around geography, politics, co-living, hobbies, and remote work. Within the digital nomad survey, Telegram was the top messaging app used by nomads (48%), followed by WhatsApp (42%). Despite not being an option on the digital nomad survey, many network state and crypto communities also flourish on Discord. Perhaps getting digital nomads to assimilate into more permanent network communities on land, means first finding ways of onboarding them in the cloud, on Discord communities. Think of it as overcoming “digital borders” or a “digital divide”, before overcoming the “physical divide” of relocation. Although, Telegram and TON are re-unifying after seven years of legal setbacks, suggesting perhaps all social media will eventually intertwine with crypto.

• Ethnicity and language. Nearly 60% identify as White/Caucasian. Asians (14%), Latinos (12%), Blacks (7%), South Asians / Indians (5%), and Middle Easterners (3%) make up the rest. In terms of nationality, the United States is by far the leading source, accounting for ~44 % of nomads. Other major nationalities include the United Kingdom (7%), Canada (5%), Russia (5%), Germany (4%), France (3%), Brazil (3%), and Australia (2%). This list blends predominantly English speaking countries and European nations with a few large emerging markets (Brazil, Russia). It suggests that nomadism is most accessible to those from affluent nations, which makes sense given currency arbitrage makes remote work even more attractive.

• Selection effects. This analysis draws heavily on Nomads.com’s live dataset of 37k+ paying members who actively log travel. It likely skews toward higher incomes and higher mobility than the broader remote-worker population. The results are therefore directional. Still, for founding teams making near-term decisions about where to plant seeds and whom to recruit, these signals are strong enough to act on. This sample is likely very WEIRD.

Digital nomads have matured into a distinct, influential class of geo-flexible professionals. The median profile is clear: early to mid-30s, highly educated, high earners in tech or adjacent online work, heavy users of Telegram and WhatsApp for coordination, and concentrated in a recurring circuit of Europe and Southeast Asia. The lifestyle is mobile at the city level yet anchored at the country level, with many people spending months in one jurisdiction, while taking shorter local trips.

This pattern, plus the community’s crypto-native, libertarian-progressive bend, makes nomads a natural talent pool for network-state experiments that start online and materialize on land. At the same time, the data exposes real gaps: gender imbalance, a skills mix tilted toward software and marketing over trades and care work, and a thin layer of shared purpose. If network states are to graduate from meetup to micro-society, these holes must be filled deliberately.

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Movement Patterns:
Fast in Cities, Slow in Countries

Nomads bounce quickly between cities yet stay far longer at the country level. Nearly half of city stays are under a week, but the average time in a single country is roughly six months. Think Thailand or Portugal as a seasonal base, plus frequent hops within. Mobility has fully rebounded from pandemic lows and now exceeds 2019 travel intensity.

Top-rated and most-visited hubs show a stable “circuit”: Tokyo, Mexico City, Budapest, Lisbon, Bangkok, Singapore, Chiang Mai, Kuala Lumpur, and the usual big Western gateways. Japan ranks among the most liked countries and cities among frequent travelers.

Why this matters for founders: The existing digital nomad lifestyle is compatible with multi-site, seasonal community design. These hotspots are already familiar to the transient digital nomad. If you are building and scaling a network state to attract longer term living, designing residency rotations aligned with travel calendars and visas around existing nodes, can help build a real cadence of movement and location stability.

Values and Tools:
The Network-State Substrate

Nomads are digitally native and crypto-aligned. They coordinate on Telegram, embrace borderless payments, and hold a freedom-first lens that blends progressive social values with a libertarian appetite for autonomy. This is the exact cultural substrate that Balaji’s network-state thesis predicts would self-organize, crowdfund land, and pursue recognition. Projects discussed in previous posts here and here, have already drawn this cohort.

However, it’s important to note that members of broader society from different socio-economic class, vocation, education, and technical skills, will have varying familiarity with tech adoption, especially in emerging innovation domains involving cryptocurrency, blockchain technology, and physical enclaves tied to digital polities. “Web3 countries” need the skills of “Web2 countries”, and there needs to be intentional thought on the UX and UI of these systems to help bridge knowledge gaps.

Did you know?

The Myers-Briggs personality type distribution for the general population, versus bitcoiners is heavily skewed in favor of the INXX personality types.

Given that currently many “network-staters” overlap with crypto enthusiasts, its likely there’s a similar restriction of range in personality types. Intentional growth planning and a reflexive immigration policy can help improve community personality diversity, while maintaining a unified mission.

The Gaps: What are we Missing?

1. Gender balance and family readiness
   Women are only 13 percent of the dataset. A durable society needs a healthy gender ratio, and family infrastructure are not optional. Emerging network states need to build for safety, childcare, education, and multi-stage life paths. Especially if drawing from Asia, many collectivist cultures tend to be family-oriented and solo relocation is difficult if leaving a family unit behind.

2. Full-stack skills for a real society
   The existing skill mix for digital nomads is heavy on software, design, and marketing. The cohort lacks medicine, agriculture, trades, construction and manufacturing. A network state that largely attracts developers is simply unsustainable. Real sovereignty needs farmers, midwives, mechanics, mediators, and myth-makers. Onboarding this class of workers into crypto-native and future-looking network communities will pose its own set of significant social and cultural challenges, which need to be overcome.

3. Shared purpose
   Secular and progressive values create cultural alignment, but manifesting a unified mission is a more difficult task. Network states need a “moral innovation” that pulls people through hard tradeoffs. Digital nomads are already transient by nature, and would easily relocate elsewhere if they didn’t resonate with network nouns (a network’s people, places, and things). There needs to be a new version of network nationalism that gravitates the individual towards a state of permanence and identity with the group and land; even if that land is fragmented globally in pockets, enclaves, and archipelagos.

A Practical Playbook:
From Nomad to Node Participant

1) Recruit for completeness, not narrow competency

• Set targets: aim for at least 40 percent women over time, plus families. Publish the goal and back it with policy and metrics. Build systems, civic engagement, and social scenes that would attract women to join and stay. Build cultural scenes that allow for civic engagement from all walks of life.

• Create on-ramps for non-tech talent: clinicians, teachers, carpenters, electricians, farmers, chefs, firefighters, operators. Offer subsidized housing or tuition-for-equity programs that trade mentorship and services for membership units. Pathways to tokenized equity or gated access can align incentives.

2) Build the skills graph

• Map the community’s capabilities and gaps. Then recruit explicitly to fill the missing nodes.

• Treat Dartnell’s The Knowledge and North’s How to Invent Everything as checklists: ensure your founding cohort collectively knows how to build, feed, power, heal, and govern a town. Cover your bases with people who know each base. If that’s not possible, figure out how to outsource the work reliably and scale towards independence. By necessity, this will require some degree of hierarchy, bureaucracy, government, and embedded social systems. It is the writer’s belief that without these social inventions, network state experiments will fail past a certain size and scale, becoming the web3 version of failed anarchist and libertarian movements of the past. Building outside existing institutions means innovating on them for greater transparency and trust.

3) Codify a simple, sticky mission

• A mission is not a slogan. Pick one problem to solve for the world and hard-wire it into membership, governance, and rituals. The mission should explain why people accept constraints today for compounding benefits tomorrow. The mission is important for every member. The transient digital nomad needs reasons to stay just as much as the displaced farm worker leaving their home country due to climate disasters.

4) Design multi-site living that matches real mobility

• Operate multiple nodes along the existing nomad circuit. Example: winter in Thailand, spring in Japan, summer in the Balkans, fall in Portugal. Bundle member services across nodes so the social graph travels with the person. Build a coherent scene that defines “home”, even if geographically distant.

5) Build for governance turnover and continuity

• Train successors early. Use rotating councils and stewardship terms. Do not let the project hinge on one charismatic operator. While having a founder-led mission is necessary for grit and early growth, systems only work if they can replicate and scale (see: bus factor). The best leaders by necessity empower and help others level up to assume more responsibility, becoming the next generation of leaders.

6) Treat society like an agile system

• Measure where people churn, where conflicts cluster, and where services bottleneck. Iterate transparently. The advantage of an early small community is speed of learning and knowledge transmission. Working through problems early, can prevent these problems from compounding with greater intensity as the project scales. Plan for conflict resolution and governance.

Why Now?

Briefly addressing libertarian critiques; in Craib’s Adventure Capitalism (2022), he overviews the modern history of “libertarian exit projects”. He criticizes tech-funded, anti-authoritarian ideas like Balaji’s network state. In his book, he argues most movements like this are:

• Elitist: Accessible mostly to the wealthy and mobile

• Neo-colonial: Exploiting “underdeveloped” regions for private gain

• Undemocratic: Avoiding obligations to others, particularly the marginalized

Craib argues this “freedom” is really about avoiding the consequences of living in a collective society. Although, the recent generation of network state experiments don’t feel that way.

For example, take Balaji’s own Network School - a reasonably affordable, globally competitive, community-as-a-service. The project is situated in a formerly abandoned “5-star luxury ghost town”, and plans to scale in cooperation with local and international laws, creating a template for other startup societies to fork and build upon. Making a voluntary, experimental living project affordable from the start, in the middle of nowhere, legally within a special economic zone, makes this and other startup society experiments feel different.

Craib’s critiques might have applied historically, but I suspect purist libertarian movements are recognizing the importance of legacy institutions, systems of order, and sound money. Opaque and corruptible organizations need to be replaced with better versions of themselves, not thrown out altogether. What’s different this time? Crypto gives us an answer: transparency and immutability.

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What Founders Should Stop Doing

• Stop optimizing for devs. Despite the technical importance of having software and hardware engineers, the growing community can quickly become a brittle monoculture. Recruit nurses, teachers, trades, small manufacturers, and farmers as aggressively as you recruit engineers. Recruiting in themed batches and groups can help onboard subcultures more effectively than starting with diverse batches and shocking the existing culture (assimilation and integration are incredibly important in transition).

• Vibes cannot substitute for a mission. You need a reason to persist through policy setbacks, media cycles, and internal disagreements. Having an explicit moral innovation and goal of the network state helps align values up front. The bolder and more operationally defined the mission, the better likelihood for alignment between network participants and citizens.

• Stop building for tourists if you want citizens. Design for people who will return every season, contribute services, and raise kids. The movement pattern of digital nomads already supports this. What’s missing is having a series of consistent, cross-border homes and familiar cultural scenes. The most tangible solution might just evolve in future versions of network states. Digital nomads are perhaps the first demographic to test living in different network state experiments. Attract them and solve further pain points to scale into other demographics.

From tribe to polity

The 2025 cohort shows momentum: a large, mobile, tech-enabled population clustering in repeatable hubs, with the tools and appetite for new governance.

Digital nomads have the digital unity, skills, and motivation to join network states, but they need to galvanize around specific causes and develop more cohesion. Nomads often say, “home is wherever I open my laptop.” The next evolution is “home is the community that travels with me, online and on land.”

In summary, to build a network state from the digital nomad population: recruit widely, stand for something, train for everything, care for everyone, and plan for the future. By doing so, founders can create a community that not only thrives internally but also serves as a beacon to the world - showing that a diverse group of global citizens can self-organize and innovate new forms of living together. This will fulfill the promise that Balaji and others see in network states, turning the transient energies of digital nomads into the stable light of a new polity.

Article Summary:

🌐 Digital Nomads → Network State Citizens
NomadList’s 2025 data reveals a high-earning, crypto-aligned, globally mobile class ready to seed new polities, but hampered by gender imbalance, narrow skill sets, and weak shared purpose.
🛠️ The Playbook for Permanence
Recruit for completeness, map essential skills; design seasonal, multi-node homes; codify a mission that survives bad weather; and build governance that outlives founders.
⚖️ Avoid Old Pitfalls
Modern network-state experiments can sidestep elitism and colonial patterns by integrating legally, staying affordable, and leveraging crypto for transparent, immutable systems.
🏠 From Laptop to Lasting Home
The evolution is from “home is wherever I open my laptop” to “home is the community that travels with me”; turning transient tribes into durable, governed societies.

In the last post, we overviewed all existing network state projects from 2023-2025 which made a serious attempt at bridging from internet to land.

In this post, I am sharing:
1) A corrective addendum with some updates from the previous post
2) New projects that might be next on the horizon, things worth following

Addendums

• Cabin: Cabin is winding down its DAO/“venture-style” operations and distributing the on-chain treasury to token holders; the community continues informally.

• CityDAO: CityDAO has effectively wound down, with votes to return funds to citizens in CIP-212 and follow-up actions in CIP-216, with coverage summarizing refunds here. Existing NFT land owners are currently reporting there’s been no updates from the founder, nor any refunds initiated as of yet.

• Kift (vanlife co-living): Little to no recent public activity; consider the project dormant for now. Their Discord server also seems to be fairly inactive since 2023-24.

• Cohere: Seems largely inactive on Discord and X, seems inactive or shut down

• Cocohub: Primarily a nomad events directory run off a simple site; minimal crypto-web3 infra behind it. The founder seems aligned with the network state vision. Note however there is a difference of direction; Balaji treats a network state as a digital-first sovereign startup that scales with metrics, capital, land, and eventual recognition. CoCoHub reframes the goals of a fluid, spiritual, and intentional network; one centered on trust, emergence, and regenerative living over tokens, roadmaps, or state power. Some builders might prefer the term network societies to reflect plural, non-state-based paths of evolution.

• ColivingDAO (Malta): Originally an early DAO approach to co-living; founders paused on this direction and are exploring a revival. Their instagram and website haven’t been updated since 2022, though their facebook page posts occasional updates. They seem most active on their Telegram group.

• Vitalia: Split into Infinita & Viva City: Vitalia dissolved as a brand. Niklas Anzinger now leads Infinita; Laurence Ion leads Viva City, positioning a longevity-focused Zu-hub with SEZ ambitions. September 2025, Infinita will be hosting Bio-Frontiers month, an exciting pop-up on longevity and biotech.

• Zuzalu tech stack & cadence: The ecosystem continues building a modular “CommunityOS” (Zuzalu.city + related dApps) without a single “Zu-brand”. This allows for a deliberate, forkable, community-run setup. Recent townhalls suggest some slowdown for pop-ups, while the software/tooling layer matures.

• Tamera / OASA / Traditional Dream Factory: Tamera is one well-known example among thousands of eco-friendly intentional communities worldwide. It has collaborated informally with Traditional Dream Factory (TDF). TDF, located near Abela, is the first on-the-ground project in the OASA network, governed by a DAO through the $TDF token and now rolling out its physical infrastructure roadmap. OASA, a Swiss association, supplies the legal wrappers, funding model, and shared governance standards for its member projects. Another honorable mention is closer.earth, a platform made by TDF for running and growing your community. Neither TDF, closer, nor OASA appeared in the previous blog, so they’re worth highlighting here.

• Micronations: Liberland is one of the few that actually runs blockchain-based e-governance/e-residency, though technically there are dozens of other micronations around the world. The others were excluded as they seemed less explicitly aligned with the ideas of the network state.

• Ciudad Morazán (Honduras): This site is actually a sister ZEDE to Próspera with a more constrained model. Note that it offers less operational freedom than Próspera, despite their geographic proximity.

• Tools for the Commons: A new entry, TftC positions itself as a “digital economic zones” platform; actively working in Zanzibar with partners and teasing new offerings. They have many projects in the works, with one public example being Astra.

• ThreeFold & Catawba Digital Economic Zone: There are press releases about a ThreeFold-backed “automated Digital SEZ” in Zanzibar, but ThreeFold (like Catawba Digital Economic Zone) are best categorized as digital infrastructure, not a charter/SEZ city.

• Network School classification fix: Network School is a program/community operating inside Malaysia’s Forest City i.e., not an SEZ or charter city itself. It’s an education-driven community leveraging a host jurisdiction, while hoping to expand and build other nodes.

• Embassy Network: Appears inactive publicly; the website hasn’t meaningfully changed in a long time.

*Special thanks to Eric Miki for providing feedback and updates for this section.

New Projects

• Network School Expansion: After some early success with the initial cohorts in Forest City, Balaji’s Network School is planned to scale outwards with a permanent base nearby the existing hub. Longer-term, the project is poised to expand globally to multiple sites. Rumors suggest future cohorts could take place in other underutilized developments in Asia or the Middle East. If Network School scales, it might essentially create education-driven network state enclaves in various locations – a fascinating hybrid of university and co-living startup. We’re likely to see a lot of updates to come as well out of the NS 2025 conference later this year. It’s a project to watch because it directly tackles talent cultivation and might produce many leaders for future network states. Social “Layer 2s” on top of NS are also becoming a thing, with ÂRC building a popup within NS, slated for Q3 2025.

• ZuVillages Going Permanent: Several Zuzalu‑inspired groups are moving from pop‑ups to permanent hubs. Notably, a 16‑floor San Francisco tower marketed as a ‘first permanent Zu‑hub,’ Switzerland’s Zuitzerland project plans to build a permanent Zuzalu node, and initiatives in Italy and Japan exploring permanent models. There’s no official announcement of a single, year‑round ‘ZuHub’ location yet, but ecosystem‑level backing like the Zuzalu/ECF Zu‑villages grant, suggests the movement is positioning for permanence, pending solutions to governance and membership that Vitalik highlighted in 2024.

• AlphaCity & Cross‑Border Zones (Africa): AlphaCity (CEO Bradford Cross) publicly positions itself as a builder of a federation of frontier cities in Africa; the team claims early agreements with several host countries, though independent confirmations aren’t yet public. Meanwhile, African governments are actively standing up tech hubs and SEZs, including Ghana–UAE’s $1B Innovation/AI Hub at Ningo‑Prampram (MoU signed, construction targeted for 2026–27), Kenya’s Konza Technopolis (a SEZ), and Rwanda’s Kigali Innovation City. Cross‑border zone models also exist (e.g., SKBo and Moyale initiatives). If AlphaCity lands a formal land/zone deal, the broader network‑state community already tracking projects like Itana and Afropolitan would likely pay attention, but this potential momentum remains contingent on a verified government agreement.

• Seasteading 2.0: While the big, government‑backed floating‑city build hasn’t visibly broken water yet (e.g., UN‑linked OCEANIX Busan remains in the prototype/design phase per UN‑Habitat), there were steps taken in 2024–25 beyond talk: Ocean Builders has multiple SeaPods operating in Panama (including the Alpha Deep model), and ArkPad launched a modular floating home in the Philippines tied to mariculture. The French Polynesia / Blue Frontiers project is long defunct, but the Seasteading Institute is active again, pushing for maritime classification/flagging (see: “Seasteads on two sides of the world”). Residential cruise concepts (Storylines MV Narrative, Life at Sea) show continued interest in ship‑as‑co‑living, albeit with delays and cancellations. In short: incremental progress, but not a city‑scale breakthrough as of yet. Oceanic living has its own set of challenges, and would likely attract different citizen-demographics, compared to citizens of land-based network states (those water people!!).

• On-chain urbanism after CityDAO: Despite shutting down, the concept of on-chain assets is far from dead. KaliDAO (created by LexDAO, real inception moment here) provides the legal and on-chain tooling that real-world projects can use. For example, its property LLC case study, CougarDAO. The mechanics for small cooperative acquisitions already exist: Homebase tokenized a single-family rental on Solana in March 2023. Lofty runs a fractional rental marketplace. RealT illustrates both potential and pitfalls, including recent scrutiny in Detroit. Tailwinds are real, with Deloitte forecasting tokenized real estate could reach US$4T by 2035. On the legal side, Wyoming’s DUNA creates a DAO-native nonprofit wrapper that can connect governance to off-chain assets. Brazil is actively tokenizing real world assets. Georgia is improving on government land registries via Exonum. On net, there is no official “CityDAO 2.0”, but the stack for on-chain, community-led ownership is real and being implemented in the wild.

• Existing cities adopting network-state tech: We’re already seeing governments borrow “cloud-first” tools. Liberland runs a blockchain-based e-governance and e-residency stack (site, app), though it remains an unrecognized micronation on disputed Danube land (background). Palau operates a government-backed Digital Residency program and ran a stablecoin pilot with Ripple. Estonia’s e-Residency set the precedent for state-issued digital identity. Taiwan’s vTaiwan and pol.is-driven processes are mature civic-tech patterns. Any “cloud government” that wants legitimacy should be learning from this stack. On the city side, Lugano accepts BTC and USDT for all municipal invoices, including taxes. Special jurisdictions are emerging too, like the Catawba Digital Economic Zone in the United States. We also can’t forget El Salvador is still stacking satoshis. However, partnerships can be fragile. As mentioned before, Próspera’s arrangement in Honduras sits in legal limbo after ZEDEs were declared unconstitutional in 2024, while a CAFTA-DR tribunal allowed Próspera’s claims to proceed on Feb 26, 2025. In other words, Próspera’s claims are still alive so that the tribunal can hear the evidence and legal arguments on expropriation or other breaches. The treaty case will be heard on the merits rather than killing the project on a technicality. On net, we may see more “symbiosis” deals where a country hosts a network-state-style project in exchange for tech and investment, but a formal “network state borough” designation is still a forward-looking idea rather than a live policy.

• Existing countries(!) adopting network-state tech: The White House’s EO 14178 report sets new crypto policy: protect open public blockchains, self-custody, mining and validating; promote dollar stablecoins, and reject a U.S. CBDC. This effectively declares “Operation Choke Point 2.0” over, and pushes regulators to finalize removal of “reputation risk” as a basis for criticism, clarify charters and Fed master accounts, and that reiterate banks can serve crypto customers. This report greenlights on-chain USD rails and self-custody while pushing clearer market structure, which makes it easier for network-state projects and web3 orgs to bank, pay, and govern on-chain with fewer chokepoints. If agencies and Congress follow through, DAOs and tokenized communities get legal clarity, stronger dollar rails, and protection for peer-to-peer activity.

• New themed communities: The domain-specific pop-up model already works: Vitalia gathered longevity and biotech folks in Roatán’s Próspera, and ZuBerlin anchors Web3 energy around Berlin Blockchain Week. Similar patterns keep appearing, like ZuVillage Georgia framed around d/acc and frontier tech. An AI-safety flavored “network state” is plausible, since co-located research infrastructure already exists in Berkeley through Lighthaven and the MATS program with housing and long residencies. For climate, Regen Coordination amalgamates “Web3-enabled communities working together to drive ecological, social, and economic regeneration”. Expect more themed experiments wherever a field has a global, urgent purpose. One caveat: calls for “research free from government constraints” should be read as jurisdictional arbitrage rather than total exit, since, for example, governments are building coordinated AI Safety Institute networks. The real edge is congregating groups on innovation that builds outside the boundaries of legacy institutions, rather than trying to compete with them on the onset.

In essence, the network state movement is entering a phase of diversification. The initial cohort tested a lot of ideas; now the successful patterns will be reused, and new fusions will be tried. Some will lean more into tech, some into spirituality, some into hardcore governance hacking. One thing is certain: the concept of intentional communities with one foot in the cloud and one on land has graduated from meme to lived reality. The coming years will determine if any of these sprouts grow into a full-fledged city-state, or if their influence will instead permeate and reform existing cities. Either way, the boundary between the digital realm and the physical communities is blurring. The network state experiments have already changed lives; time will tell if some might yet change the world.

Article Summary:

🟣 Pop-ups → Permanence
Zuzalu-inspired hubs are turning into permanent enclaves from SF to Switzerland. The era of experiments is shifting toward anchored communities.
📚 Education is the new stack
Network School is scaling globally, blending pedagogy with community; training the builders of future network societies.
⚖️ Legal wrappers unlock scale
Projects like OASA, DUNA, and KaliDAO are creating templates to connect DAOs to land and real-world assets. Próspera’s legal fight underscores why this matters.
🌍 Africa opens up
Ghana, Rwanda, Kenya, and AlphaCity hint that frontier governance is welcome where aligned with national progress.
🌊 Seasteading stays niche
SeaPods and ArkPad float forward, but full-fledged ocean cities remain aspirational. Useful for edge use-cases, not mass adoption yet.
🧱 On-chain real estate lives on
CityDAO is dead, but Homebase, CougarDAO, and Lofty quietly keep the model alive. Tokenized ownership is real, just less hyped.
🏛 States are adopting the tools
Palau, Estonia, and the U.S. (via EO 14178) are embedding crypto governance into law. “Cloud-first” cities may grow inside nation-states.
🎯 Themes > tokens
New communities now organize around biotech, AI safety, climate, and frontier tech. Aligned purpose is outpacing generic DAOs.
📌 Key takeaway
The network state is no longer one blueprint, it’s an emerging playbook. Culture and execution, not capital and adoption, are the bottleneck now.

Technology, money, and innovative charters are powerful tools, but community-building remains deeply human, at the heart of a successful network state.

From Tweets to Towns

It was 2023 when I arrived at the first annual Network State conference on a grey Amsterdam morning. Piggy-backing off Solana’s Breakpoint conference that had just wrapped up the day before, this conference was sizable in its attendance for its breakout year.

Throughout the day, Balaji Srinivasan and team hosted many talks from existing crypto communities, DAOs, startup cities, and small groups of communities gathering IRL in different formations around the world, running micro experiments that really pushed the concepts laid out in his book about forming communities cloud first, land last, but importantly, not land never.

Four years ago, Balaji Srinivasan published The Network State, sketching a world where digital tribes could one day petition for sovereignty. Since then, dozens of communities have sprung up around the world – some as brief, festival‑like experiments, others as real estate projects tethered to special economic zones.

Currently, Balaji is busy building out the Network School. A first of its kind community where you can learn new skills, burn calories, and earn by leveling up and building globally competitive products to help shape a brighter, technology-adapted future.

As Singapore prepares to host the 2025 Network State Conference, it’s worth surveying what has actually materialized and, perhaps more importantly, what hasn’t. We have the privilege of having just over two years of hindsight to see through these various experiments and acknowledge what did, and didn’t work.

Methodology

This post reviews every project highlighted at the 2023 and 2024 Network State conferences, alongside entries on the Network State Dashboard. We focus on communities that actually established a physical presence – whether by hosting residents on-site (even temporarily) or constructing real estate. We identified about 25 projects that meet this bar (physical land, an in-person community lasting at least a week). These range widely in size, duration, and theme. For clarity, I’ve grouped the projects into 7 categories of network-state experiments, each defined by a different approach to intentional community building. Within each category, we’ll examine key examples, highlight successes and setbacks, and note their current status as of mid-2025. Finally, I’m going to do my best to distill some overarching trends for learned wisdom.

Note that most classic micro-nations, ethnic enclaves, or regular states aren’t on the NS dashboard because the dashboard curates startup‑society / network‑state–adjacent projects with an internet‑first community and a plausible path along Balaji’s ladder (network union → network archipelago → eventual recognition). We’re focusing on projects with a strong internet presence that have also established a physical presence, demonstrating a bridge between the digital and physical worlds. Consequently, we’re excluding promising projects like Praxis which, despite their strong online community, have not yet solidified any operations on land.

We’re going to examine every notable network state-aligned alternative community, which despite having roots online, accomplished the feat of establishing land somewhere on the earth. Hopefully, this can help the next generation of builders and communities to learn from the past, and iterate on this new form of living and government.

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Different Networks, Different Purposes

Importantly, the composition, size, duration, and core theme of each micro living experiment requires a different setup. There is no one size fits all, as there is no one correct way of living. Such is the beauty of small-scale innovation and iteration.

It’s also important to note that physical land ≠ automatic success, but having land signifies that there is serious enough traction to take something from bits to atoms (sort of a reversal of Thiel’s critique of over-innovation in bits and under-innovation in atoms). I’m particularly curious about the social, cultural, geographic, and political challenges this new class of projects have faced.

At the time of writing, the NS Dashboard has 117 listed network state projects. Among them, I've identified 25 that have transitioned (or very soon will) have an offline living component, with ongoing in-person gatherings. These experiments exist in various states: completed, ongoing, upcoming, or paused due to legal, political, or other factors (details below).

Of the 25 projects (snapshot details in the next section), clustering them together brought about seven emergent themes.

Note: some website links might have moved so they may be dead, or outdated at the time of reading. 1

a tl;dr: Pop‑up cities won the last two years; regulatory zones are a legal coin‑flip; and the best operators built culture before law.
(There’s also a summary of the full article at the bottom)

1. Pop‑Up Cities:

Definition: Time‑boxed “city” experiments that gather a few hundred to a few thousand people in one place for weeks or months to prototype culture, governance, and tech, often with the intent to spin out permanent hubs later.

Examples: Zuzalu / Zu‑villages, Vitalia (Próspera), Edge Esmeralda / Edge City, Forma (Solana Economic Zones)

2. Charter/SEZ‑Based Cities:

Definition: Communities anchored to special legal/regulatory frameworks (SEZs, charter cities, digital free zones) that offer alternative governance, streamlined incorporation, or tax/admin advantages. They tend to build residential and work districts on top.

Examples: Próspera (Roatán), Ciudad Morazán (Honduras), Itana (Lagos), Network School (Forest City, Malaysia), ThreeFold & Catawba Digital Economic Zone, AlphaCity (Africa; planned)

3. Micro‑Nations:

Definition: Projects asserting (or implying) quasi‑sovereign status separate from existing states, typically on disputed or unclaimed territory, aiming for recognition and self‑administration.

Example: The only one of its kind so far, to successfully integrate cryptocurrency into its economy, Liberland (Danube River)

4. Purpose‑Built Eco‑Cities & Artistic Enclaves:

Definition: Master‑planned settlements emphasizing walkability, ecology, wellness, arts, and design. Often mixing housing with schools, cultural venues, and nature to pilot new urban lifestyles.

Examples: Culdesac (Tempe), Nuanu (Bali), Porta Norte (Panama), Tamera (Portugal)

5. Distributed/Network Cities & Co-living DAOs:

Definition: Federated communities spread across many nodes (houses, ranches, properties) with shared identity, mobility rights, and governance; less a single site, more a network you can move through.

Examples: Cabin (Global), CityDAO (Wyoming), Kift (USA), Cocohub (Global), Cohere (Global)

6. Private Cities & Libertarian Enclaves:

Definition: Privately led developments pursuing strong property rights, minimal coercion, and market governance. Usually within an existing nation’s law, but aspiring to high local autonomy.

Examples: Liberstad (Norway), Montelibero (Montenegro), Satoshi Island (Vanuatu)

7. Urban Intentional Houses & Salons:

Definition: Long‑running community houses in major cities that host residents and salons, acting as micro‑scale civic nodes and on‑ramps into broader network‑state culture.

Examples: Embassy Network (San Francisco)

Snapshot Update of 25 Projects

To capture a brief snapshot of what’s emerged and to track progress since the inception year of the conference (2023), this section highlights the mission, location, size, and updates on each project. Below is a brief summary of the 25 projects that fall in one of seven categories above. These projects have formed in the cloud, but are also literally hit the ground running.

1. Network School (Forest City, Malaysia):

   • Mission: Ongoing residential program blending co‑living, education and startup culture in an under‑populated special economic zone. It offers daily coding/crypto assignments, hackathons, group workouts and mentoring – essentially a “Silicon Valley without San Francisco.”

   • Evidence & location: Hosted in Forest City, a large but sparsely populated development near Singapore; the program runs as a semi‑permanent campus with ~150+ students per cohort.

   • Updates: Late 2024 inaugural cohort filled 150 spots; Balaji plans to continue in 2025 and scale up. Recruitment is ongoing and the team is hiring instructors, operations and community managers to scale up.

2. Zuzalu / Zu‑villages (Global):

   • Mission: Decentralized pop‑up “cities” where technologists, longevity researchers and public‑good builders live together for several weeks.

   • Evidence & location: The first pop‑up in Montenegro (Mar–May 2023) hosted ~200 residents; subsequent pop‑ups occurred in Istanbul, Georgia and Chiang Mai.

   • Updates: 2023 – Launched Zuzalu and ZuConnect; 2024 – decentralized into multiple Zu‑villages; 2025 – continues to organize pop‑ups and exploring permanent hubs. Coming soon: ZuGrama, Zuitzerland

3. Culdesac (Tempe, Arizona):

   • Mission: Build walkable, car‑free neighbourhoods integrated with transit and local businesses.

   • Evidence & location: The 17‑acre Culdesac Tempe site includes 288 apartments and 21 local businesses; residents live car‑free with bike paths and local retail.

   • Updates: Phase 1 opened to residents in 2023; by 2024 amenities such as a pool, gym and retailers were complete; Phase 2 planning underway.

4. Prospera (Roatán, Honduras):

   • Mission: Private startup city offering entrepreneurs low taxes and privately provided services.

   • Evidence & location: Located on the island of Roatán; legal autonomy under Honduras’s ZEDE framework; over 1,700 residents and 34,000 m² of buildings.

   • Updates: Grew through 2023 but faces significant legal uncertainty due to repeal of ZEDE law and ongoing US$10.7 bn arbitration; hosted Vitalia pop‑up in 2024; still building in 2025.

5. Cabin (Global):

   • Mission: A network city of rural “neighbourhoods” where creators and remote workers live together in nature, with DAO governance.

   • Evidence & location: Operates 33 neighbourhoods worldwide with 1,825 members.

   • Updates: 2023 – added more neighbourhoods and ran an accelerator; 2024 – grew to 17+ neighbourhoods aiming for 500 by 2030; 2025 – expanding and refining governance.

6. Nuanu (Bali, Indonesia):

   • Mission: Build a self‑sustaining city combining accommodation, schools, art installations, dining, wellness and creative spaces.

   • Evidence & location: 44‑hectare site near Nyanyi Beach with hotels, tree houses, art parks and educational facilities.

   • Updates: Soft‑opened in July 2024 during the Suara festival attended by >9,000 people; ongoing construction of residential units and cultural facilities into 2025. Sub-projects like “Moano” have been announced.

7. Vitalia (Próspera, Roatán):

   • Mission: Pop‑up city exploring longevity biotech and crypto within Prospera.

   • Evidence & location: Hosted at Próspera; planned as a two‑month pop‑up (Jan – Mar 2024) but extended to Apr 1 due to success.

   • Updates: 2024 – first pop‑up attracted hundreds; organizers aim to create a permanent biotech district; 2025 – planning future pop‑ups.

8. Itana (Lagos, Nigeria):

   • Mission: Establish Africa’s first digital free zone with remote incorporation, low taxes and on‑site residential and co‑working facilities.

   • Evidence & location: Building a 72,000 m² district in Lagos’s Lekki Free Zone to house 1,000 residents and 2,500 remote workers; digital residency program has 3,000+ founders and investors.

   • Updates: Construction began in 2024; continues in 2025 with government support.

9. Ciudad Morazán (Honduras):

   • Mission: Affordable housing and industrial zone within Honduras’s ZEDE framework.

   • Evidence & location: SEZ near San Pedro Sula; considered the most successful charter city because residents live on site.

   • Updates: Continuous construction and occupancy; represented at Vitalia 2024; legal status uncertain after ZEDE repeal.

10. Porta Norte (Panama):

    • Mission: Create a walkable, nature‑integrated city north of Panama City.

    • Evidence & location: Inaugurated Plaza Panamá, a 1,800‑m² public space, on 25 Apr 2023.

    • Updates: Phase 1 infrastructure complete; residential construction and phase 2 planning continue through 2024 and 2025.

11. Tamera (Alentejo, Portugal):

    • Mission: Ecovillage founded in 1995 to research non‑violent living, permaculture and social healing.

    • Evidence & location: Home to >200 residents and hosts a research and training centre.

    • Updates: Continues to thrive; hosts visitors year‑round.

12. Liberstad (Norway):

    • Mission: Build a private city without coercion where members own land and businesses.

    • Evidence & location: 150 ha property in southern Norway with 129 landowners, 557 members and 37 companies.

    • Updates: Slow but steady development; marketing long‑term leases and infrastructure.

13. Montelibero (Montenegro):

    • Mission: Libertarian settlement for Eastern European migrants and crypto enthusiasts.

    • Evidence & location: Owns 1 ha and has built roads, utilities and two residential buildings (eight‑unit block and glamping house); first resident moved in May 2023.

    • Updates: New buildings and a permaculture garden added in 2024; gradual growth into 2025.

14. Liberland (Danube River, Croatia/Serbia):

    • Mission: Libertarian micro‑nation claiming a disputed river island.

    • Evidence & location: Marina ready, first house built, settlers arriving daily.

    • Updates: Development ongoing but slow; remains unrecognized.

15. CityDAO (Wyoming, USA):

    • Mission: Experiment with tokenized land ownership and on‑chain governance.

    • Evidence & location: DAO bought 40 acres of land in Wyoming.

    • Updates: Initial enthusiasm faded; by late 2023 the project debated dissolving; still dormant in 2025.

16. Satoshi Island (Vanuatu):

    • Mission: Build a blockchain‑based city where property rights are NFTs.

    • Evidence & location: 32‑ha island in Vanuatu; marketing modular homes via NFT deeds.

    • Updates: Project stalled – by mid‑2024 only the head of operations lived there.

17. Kift (USA):

    • Mission: Combine vanlife with communal houses where nomads share kitchens and workspaces.

    • Evidence & location: Operates four properties across the Pacific Northwest and Southern California; ~100 residents and uses NFTs for governance.

    • Updates: Maintains properties; exploring collective land purchases.

18. Cocohub (Global):

    • Mission: Token‑based coliving network giving members access to 255 houses in 53 countries.

    • Evidence & location: Distributed network; not a single hub but many houses worldwide.

    • Updates: Continues adding coliving partners and hosting meet‑ups.

19. Cohere (Global):

    • Mission: Curated coliving communities focused on wellness, work and belonging.

    • Evidence & location: Plans communities in California, Zanzibar, Brazil, Guatemala and Ecuador.

    • Updates: Wild Seeds Ranch open in California; other locations forming.

20. Edge Esmeralda / Edge City (California & Global):

    • Mission: Temporary “society incubators” testing healthy, multi‑generational living.

    • Evidence & location: Edge Esmeralda pop‑up in Healdsburg created a walkable village with communal spaces.

    • Updates: 2023 – Edge Esmeralda ran; 2024 – multiple pop‑ups (Lanna, etc.) in Chiang Mai; exploring permanent settlements.

21. Embassy Network (San Francisco):

    • Mission: Intentional community house fostering cultural exchange and mutual aid.

    • Evidence & location: Operates a historic house in San Francisco with residents and regular salons.

    • Updates: Continues stable operations with ~15–20 residents.

22. Moano (Bali, Indonesia):

    • Mission: Community project (possibly part of Nuanu) combining schools, creative communities and wellness facilities.

    • Evidence & location: Presentation at Network State Conference 2024 highlighted the Bali location and emphasis on education and creativity.

    • Updates: Early development stage as of 2025.

23. Threefold & Catawba Digital Economic Zone (Zanzibar/Tanzania & US):

    • Mission: Provide decentralised cloud infrastructure and digital free zones to support network states.

    • Evidence & location: Operating in >50 countries with a planned digital free zone in Zanzibar; partnered with the Catawba Digital Economic Zone in the US.

    • Updates: Focused on infrastructure rather than co‑living; physical zones planned but not yet built.

24. Forma (Solana Economic Zones):

    • Mission: Develop Solana‑based economic zones with pop‑up events, long‑term programs and physical hubs.

    • Evidence & location: First pop‑up zone in Argentina attracted hundreds.

    • Updates: Planning expansions in Asia Pacific, EMEA and the Americas.

25. AlphaCity (Africa):

    • Mission: Build a federation of startup cities across Africa using zone law and public‑private partnerships.

    • Evidence & location: Conceptual; no land acquired yet.

    • Updates: Presented at the Network State Conference 2024; exploring joint ventures with African governments.

Successes & Setbacks

To keep with the flow for the reader, we'll explore the successes and failures of individual projects grouped under their respective seven themes, in the same order as presented.

1. Pop‑Up Cities

Pros: Pop‑ups are the breakout success of this whole movement. They lower the barrier to entry (two weeks or two months is psychologically easy), compress smart people into one place, and generate collaboration at a pace you rarely get online. Living together, eating, shipping, debating, can all build trust quickly. That trust allows for research sprints, open‑source tooling, startup teams, and long‑term working relationships. The format is replicable (templates, playbooks, and funding now exist), so we’re seeing a decentralized wave of “Zu‑villages” with local flavor rather than a single, centralized brand.

Cons/Setbacks: They’re transient by design. If nothing roots after the goodbye dinner, energy dissipates and you’re left with memories and a Telegram chat. They can be expensive or invite‑only, which skews the crowd and makes “impact” hard to generalize. Logistics are heavy; local integration is hit‑or‑miss; and physical infrastructure built for two months isn’t optimized for two years. The biggest open question is whether they can be a reliable on‑ramp to something more expansive, and durable.

Current Status: The model is thriving. Zuzalu spawned year‑over‑year spin‑offs (the Zu‑ pattern keeps spreading), Edge’s pilot in California proved you can build a “village feel” quickly, and Forma’s pop‑up economic zones are stitching blockchain culture to neighbourhoods on the ground. Vitalia took the next step: extending beyond its initial window and positioning itself as a lasting “district” within a charter zone. The through‑line in 2025: more pop‑ups, more local organizers, more attempts to convert event momentum into anchored hubs.

2. Charter/SEZ‑Based Cities

Pros: Operate inside a friendlier legal sandbox, and you can actually ship policy: fast incorporation, lower friction, clearer rules, alternative courts/arbitration, streamlined taxes. Layer that on top of a master‑planned neighbourhoods and you get a credible reason for talent and companies to move. Unlike pop‑ups, this path aims to be permanent. Intentionally designed districts with reliable power, internet, mobility, health services, and a values‑aligned culture (e.g., property‑rights‑respecting), can help solidify a local culture and diaspora.

Cons/Setbacks: The sword overhead is politics. A change of government or legal climate can flip the table and drag you into years of uncertainty. Capital intensity is non‑trivial; you’re hiring judges and code inspectors before you’re hiring a barista. Legitimacy also lags: critics will point to empty buildings or half‑filled towers. Until one zone is unambiguously successful across social and economic metrics, the category carries a brand risk that affects everyone trying to do it right.

Current Status: One project sits squarely in the spotlight: a private city in Honduras that advanced faster than most (its own civil/commercial framework, hundreds of registered firms, a steady resident pipeline), then collided with a national legal reversal. The team claims a long‑term stability contract and has taken the dispute to international arbitration with a multibillion‑dollar claim, while continuing to operate on the ground, host programs, and add jobs. If it clears the legal cloud, it becomes the template for the world; if not, it becomes a cautionary case study on establishing political alliance and trust with a host country. Meanwhile, Africa’s leading experiment in the Lekki Free Zone (Lagos) is building out with government buy‑in and an explicit “digital residency” on‑ramp for founders. If it hits its early targets, it will be the playbook many African governments copy. A different tactic is emerging in Southeast Asia: occupy an under‑used megaproject shell, inject a few hundred vetted builders, and run tight cycles of education, co‑living, and production. The early cohort phase worked, and recruiting and scaling is happening. Net‑net: a Darwinian phase. The teams with real product‑market‑fit for residents and businesses, and credible state partnerships, are compounding. Others are pausing, pivoting, or fading.

3. Micro‑Nations

Pros: This is sovereignty energy in its purest form (the only example in this category, Liberland). For liberty‑maximalists, “start a country” is both a critique and a creative act. The upside is cultural: extremely tight bonds, meaningful rituals, and a living counter‑narrative to bureaucratic sprawl. Even without recognition, these experiments expand the Overton window and force useful conversations about consent, governance, and the scope of the state.

Cons/Setbacks: Recognition is the wall you run into, every time. Without it, you operate in legal gray on someone else’s borders. Budgets are small, terrain is often marginal, and providing even basic services is hard, which erodes credibility over time. Push too hard and you invite legal trouble; play it safe and you drift toward symbolism. Most “island nation” pitches either never acquired viable land, or quietly reverted to conventional resort development.

Current Status: The most persistent example today, Liberland is a micro‑state: a tiny rotating on‑site crew, a marina and boat logistics, a handful of structures (including a treehouse), generators for power, intermittent connectivity, and a DIY resupply cadence… It feels more like I’m describing the set of Hamlet and not so much a town. It’s honest about what it is and isn’t. Outside of that, the center of gravity has moved: most serious builders now aim for charter/SEZ vehicles with explicit partnerships, rather than unilateral declarations dependent on the mood of the neighbour next door. As of 2025, Liberland has about 1,200 “citizens”, but the real population is 1-2 orders of magnitude much lower.

4. Purpose‑Built Eco‑Cities & Artistic Enclaves

Pros: These projects quietly achieve what many “network states” only promise: neighbourhoods people actually want to live in. They start with atoms: walkability, ecology, arts, education, mixed use, and build social fabric on top. They operate within standard national law (less political surface area), so the focus stays on livability: plazas over press releases, schools over slogans. Because the product is daily life, adoption is steady and low‑drama.

Cons/Setbacks: They aren’t trying to change legal regimes. Governance experiments stay modest; the innovation is urbanism and curation, not law. Curation can also skew premium; keeping costs accessible and culture open requires constant attention. Without careful stewardship, “eco‑city” can become an aesthetic rather than a meaningful daily practice.

Current Status: In the U.S., a car‑free neighbourhoods in Tempe is the clearest proof: Phase‑1 fully leased, a genuine street‑life culture, and Phase‑2 planning in motion. Residents trade parking for mobility perks and actually use them. In Bali, a coastal enclave launched with a festival to ignite the scene and is now adding the stickiness layer: schools, creator programs, and long‑stay housing. This is to solidify it as not a destination, but a home.

In Panama, a traditional‑meets‑modern town plan is filling in around plazas and mixed‑use blocks, with successive phases rolling forward. In Portugal, a decades‑long peace‑research community continues its slow‑and‑steady model: ecological restoration plus education, plus a stable village culture, outlasting any hype cycles. Zooming out: this category behaves like a network archipelago in practice; multiple aligned neighbourhoods across countries, tied by culture rather than law.

5. Distributed/Network Cities & Co‑living DAOs

Pros: Instead of betting on a single parcel, federate many nodes: houses, cabins, ranches, retreats, all under shared identity, mobility rights, and governance. Members roam while staying “among their people.” The network survives even if one node falters. It’s the closest live analogue to a “city of cities,” and the gains are social (trust, reciprocity) as much as physical.

Cons/Setbacks: Coordination tax is real. Standards and culture drift if you don’t invest in an operating system and stay fairly hands on, while building culture. Quality varies by node; small sites cap the local “city feel,” so you need many before the network feels dense. On‑chain voting doesn’t clean countertops either, local leadership still matters.

Current Status: One global network matured from a single Texas homestead into dozens of neighbourhoods across continents with a ~four‑figure member community. It runs residencies and an accelerator to onboard properties, and it keeps tuning governance so expansion doesn’t dilute culture. Ambition remains high (hundreds of neighbourhoods by decade’s end) and the team is frank about the coordination grind. A famous on‑chain land co‑op proved the opposite lesson: a historic purchase, huge attention, then a long stall as energy and clarity diffused. It innovated on having on-chain land ownership. It failed to build anything sustainable on the land itself. Around them are practical operators: vanlife‑to‑basecamp networks, beachfront co‑living clusters, long‑stay creator houses. Less glamorous, more consistent. The success metric here isn’t skyscrapers; it’s member retention, recurring collaboration, and the feeling that moving between nodes feels like moving within one city.

6. Private Cities & Libertarian Enclaves

Pros: Clear property rights, voluntary norms, and market governance, all built inside existing countries. The value prop is cultural: live your philosophy without waiting on a legislature. It’s a pragmatic zone of autonomy where the “statecraft” is neighbor‑craft: competent operations, transparent rules, predictable enforcement, high trust.

Cons/Setbacks: Without a legal carve‑out, you’re often just a themed subdivision with high ideals. Progress can be slow (permits, utilities, capital). A few over‑marketed projects burned credibility by promising the moon and delivering a show home.

Current Status: In Scandinavia, a libertarian enclave continues its long slog: small, real, constrained by national law, and still there. In the Balkans, a 1‑hectare community is the quiet win: road and utilities in, two small apartment buildings up, gardens and commons running, first permanent resident logged in 2023, integration with local life rather than isolation. In the South Pacific, the much‑hyped “crypto island” raised attention with NFT land deeds and glossy renders, then delivered very little real settlement and drifted back toward conventional resort vibes. The pattern is clear: under‑promise and build slow community, or over‑promise and stall. The former can scale.

7. Urban Intentional Houses & Salons

Pros: These are the social mitochondria. Another solo in its category, Embassy Network has a handful of rooms in a good city, with a rotating cast of builders, artists, and researchers. They host weekly dinners, monthly salons, and regular hack nights. People come in through a friend of a friend, and three weeks later they have a project partner and a couch in another city. They don’t change laws; they change trajectories. Houses are the on‑ramp that convert online curiosity into embodied community.

Cons/Setbacks: Continuity depends on a few stationary, permanent leaders. Urban rents are relentless; burnout is real. Without intentional openness, a house can drift into cliquishness and lose the “public‑minded private space” ethos that makes it powerful.

Current Status: The embassy‑style houses that predate the “network state” meme are still running and still matter. The pipeline repeats globally: start with a house → host salons → form crews → spin out shared studios and pop‑ups → eventually land in a larger hub (or join one of the categories above). Unsexy, essential. Though likely serving an important cultural entry point. If you’re looking for where the next cohort is quietly forming, it’s often around a kitchen island in one of these houses.

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Lessons from New Community Experiments

After two years of accelerated experimentation, what have we learned about building network states in practice? Several key themes emerge across these diverse projects:

• “Cloud First, Land Last” – But Land Eventually: Balaji’s mantra of starting with an online community and only later securing territory has largely been followed. Virtually all these projects began by gathering people in the cloud (on forums, Discord, Twitter) around a shared identity or mission.

However, the ones that have made it onto land show that sooner or later, physical presence becomes crucial. Land or property acts as a focal point for community and a proving ground for values. Even something as transient as a pop-up city can greatly amplify a community’s cohesion. Conversely, projects that stayed purely online (or token-based) without a clear land plan, may often fizzle out or stagnate. Physical meetups and hubs have been the catalyst that turns an internet tribe into a living society.

• Regulatory Reality Check: Ambitions met legal reality in more than one case. The clearest example is Próspera – despite careful planning under a legal charter, a change in government risks turning their legal foundation into quicksand. Network state builders have learned they must either work closely with governments (Itana’s approach, partnering with Nigeria on a free zone), or choose jurisdictions wisely (small nations or localities eager for development).

Some, like Liberland, opt for an unclaimed area to avoid any host government – but then face issues of recognition and enforcement. The state isn’t vanishing anytime soon. To succeed, these communities need legal acumen, political strategy, and often a Plan B if the host state turns hostile. This could mean treaties, arbitration (as Próspera is pursuing), or diversifying assets across countries to avoid single-point failure.

• Community First, Tech Second: Despite the tech-heavy origins (many of these spun out of crypto or Silicon Valley circles), the crucial factor in success has been community, not technology. The projects that thrived, such as Zuzalu, Cabin, and Culdesac, focused on gathering people and iterating on social norms. The tech (tokens, apps, etc.) is secondary and supportive. Meanwhile, projects that put tech or finance first (e.g. selling NFTs as a substitute for community building, like Satoshi Island did), struggled. This reaffirms that building a network state is as much a social endeavor, as a technical or legal one. Trust, shared culture, and common mission are the currency that matters. Technology can facilitate (Gitcoin grants helped Zu-villages and DAOs help manage Cabin’s resources), but tech alone can’t conjure a community out of thin air.

• Manage Expectations & Hype: 2021–2022 saw lofty proclamations – “100,000 citizens by next year!” or “we’ll break ground on a city by Q4”. Many projects underdelivered on these early promises, partly due to overestimating the speed at which one can build (both physically and socially). The crypto bear market in 2022 also deflated some momentum (less speculative capital to throw at wild ideas). By 2023, a noticeable shift occurred: messaging became more modest and realistic about timelines. Projects like Praxis started openly acknowledging they were still in conceptual phase in 2024 (with zero land acquired), rather than pretending otherwise

• Transparency about progress (or lack thereof) turned out to be important in maintaining credibility with members. Communities that felt misled by hype sometimes splintered (e.g. Satoshi Island NFT holders). The survivors learned to under-promise and over-deliver. For instance, Cabin didn’t promise a network of 100 nodes overnight; it grew from 1 to 5 to 17, delivering incrementally and celebrating each milestone genuinely.

• Pop-Ups as a Path to Permanence: A notable pattern is temporary gatherings seeding lasting initiatives. Zuzalu’s pop-up directly gave rise to a whole lineage of Zu-villages and even contributed to Vitalia’s founding. It validated a model: start with a pop-up, build network and trust, then use that as the springboard for something more permanent (e.g. teams forming to launch new villages or districts). We can expect this approach to be replicated. The pop-up strategy has proven an effective MVP for a network state: it’s to a city what a hackathon is to a startup – a quick, resource-constrained prototype that either sparks something, or doesn’t. The iteration and small scale of pop-ups in attracting talent and testing ideas is perhaps the single biggest positive takeaway of the last two years.

• Gradients of Sovereignty: Not every project aspires to nationhood in the traditional sense, and that’s okay. We’re seeing a spectrum: some want full sovereignty (Liberland), some want autonomy within a host (charter cities), others are content as networked communities without any sovereign claims (Cabin, Cocohub). Different communities will find the level of political autonomy that suits their needs. Many network states might remain at the “network archipelago” stage indefinitely, and still be impactful by influencing culture or policy externally. Key insight: Success for a network state doesn’t have to mean UN recognition. It can mean creating a durable, self-governing community that provides value to members and maybe even services traditionally offered by states (education via Network School, employment via Prospera’s ecosystem, healthcare via Vitalia’s biotech focus, etc.).

• Integration with Legacy Systems: A pragmatic trend is emerging where network state projects try to integrate with existing systems for mutual benefit. Itana works with the Nigerian government’s; Network School inhabits an existing SEZ city; Prospera seeks legal arbitration through international courts (i.e., using traditional dispute mechanisms). Even pop-ups often coordinate with local municipalities for permits. The movement is evolving from a rebellious stance (“cloud communities versus nation-states”) to a collaborative or parallel stance (“cloud communities alongside nation-states”). The more combative approach (like seasteading or unilateral secession) has not yielded much in these years, whereas cooperative models have borne more fruit.

• Funding and Economics: Initially, a lot of these efforts were funded by crypto wealth (NFT sales, token launches, VC backing from crypto funds). With the crypto downturn, easy money dried up. Projects had to find more sustainable funding: selling actual property or memberships (Liberstad land, Cabin memberships), generating revenue through programs (Network School tuition, events like Suara at Nuanu), or good old-fashioned real estate investment (Porta Norte selling homes). The ones that treated their venture partly as a business (with customers, products, revenue) seem healthier than those that relied purely on speculative funding.

This professionalization is likely to continue. Expect to see network states with business models (education, tourism, housing development, tech services, etc.), rather than just DAO treasuries.

In summary, the period of 2023–2025 has taken the network state idea from theory to tangible pilots. Not everything worked – many efforts are behind schedule or have scaled down ambitions. But importantly, something is happening: people are living in new ways, whether in a pop-up “village” for a month, a car-free city, or a cluster of cabins bound by a DAO.

These small sparks collectively light a path forward. The next few years will likely involve refining the successful models (more pop-ups, more charter deals, more coliving networks) and learning from the failures (don’t oversell NFTs, don’t skip community building, mind the legal frameworks).

The overarching lesson might just be:

Technology and capital are powerful tools, but community-building remains deeply human. Trust, purpose, and shared experiences are the true foundation of any network state.

If you’re a builder: Start with a pop‑up; secure a legal partner or Plan B; monetize and scale like a business (not a token).

Article Summary:

🟠 Pop-ups won the last cycle. Zuzalu and spin-offs proved you can prototype culture, governance, and tech with a few hundred people and a Telegram group.
🏗 Charter cities are maturing, but fragile. Prospera has real buildings and residents, but legal challenges loom. Itana and Vitalia are next to watch.
🌱 Eco-enclaves and SEZs outpaced crypto-native plays. Culdesac, Nuanu, and Forest City show how land-first projects quietly gained traction while token-led ones stalled.
🌐 Distributed networks are scaling slowly. Cabin, Network School, and ReFi nodes grew cautiously, often prioritizing resilience over hype.
📌 Key takeaway: Culture > capital. Land helps, but aligned people help more.

Adapted from Marc Andreessen’s Techno-Optimist Manifesto

A startup society that grows until it negotiates with nations as a peer.

A network state is a social network with a moral innovation, a sense of national consciousness, a recognized founder, a capacity for collective action, an in-person level of civility, an integrated cryptocurrency, a consensual government limited by a social smart contract, an archipelago of crowdfunded physical territories, a virtual capital, and an on-chain census that proves a large enough population, income, and real estate footprint to attain a measure of diplomatic recognition.

(TNS)

Website

Humanity has already forked money (Bitcoin), computing (open source), communication (the Internet), and organization (DAOs).

The final monopoly is the nation‑state itself.

This document asserts that sovereignty can, and must, be forked.

We call the resulting polity The Network State.

Lies

We are being lied to.

We are told that only blood‑soaked revolutions or creaking institutions can found a country.

We are told that borders are immovable, that citizenship is bestowed by accident of birth, that governance must be inherited like deleterious genes.

We are told that politics is a zero‑sum cage match, that the nation‑state is the final form of mass-coordinated human history.

We are told to fear new coordination technologies: crypto, DAOs, encrypted chat, as engines of chaos rather than engines of consent.

We are told to be stateless in spirit but border‑bound in body.

We are told to accept digital life without digital self‑determination.

Truth

A state is, at root, a ledger of consensus.

Bits travel faster than bullets.

The internet has already knit together cities of code, markets of tokens, guilds of strangers.

Now it can knit together polities.

A network state is “a social network with an agreed‑upon leader, an integrated cryptocurrency, a definite purpose, a sense of national consciousness, and a plan to crowdfund territory” (Balaji S.)

Cloud first, land last, but not land never.

Mindshare before acreage. Git commits before constitutions.

Networks

Networks are voluntary, borderless, anti‑fragile.

They route around censorship, tariff, and tyranny like TCP/IP packets around firewalled nodes.

A network is the most inclusive invention since language: anyone with a signal can join, build, fork.

We deploy virality not for outrage, but for memetic alignment.

Social graphs are now civic graphs.

Cryptoeconomies

“Fiat money… is backed by men with guns” - Paul Krugman (1998)

Money is the first governance module.

Bitcoin proved that shared belief plus cryptography can mint a multi‑trillion‑dollar asset with zero guns fired.

A network state extends that lesson: shared belief mints sovereignty.

We go from sovereign individuals, to a sovereign collective.

Tokens meter contribution, fund the commons, and crucially, establish a native treasury for buying land and building aligned communities.

The Cloud‑to‑Land Spiral

1. Startup Society → Starts to form online. A Discord, a mission, a meme.
Example: 10k members in a Discord testing a carbon‑credit stablecoin.

2. Network Union → coordinated action for members’ benefit.
Example: Members pool capital to bulk‑buy health insurance across borders.

3. Network Archipelago → apartments, cul‑de‑sacs, campuses crowdfunded across continents.
Example: First co‑living hub opens in Lisbon; second in Chiang Mai.

4. Diplomatic Recognition → numerical legitimacy (citizens, GDP, acreage) begets societal legitimacy (treaties, UN votes).
Example: Partnership inked with Estonia’s e‑Residency program.

Like startups, most will pivot, fork, or die. A few will sprint, and the whole S‑curve can flourish into legitimate statehood.

Society as a Service (The new SaaS)

The legacy model: you inherit a passport, pay taxes into an opaque black hole, and hope incumbents don’t debase, surveil, or draft you.

The network model: you subscribe to a jurisdiction the way you subscribe to an individual influencer, a private Discord group, or a software as a service.

Exit is one click; voice is one pull request.

Loyalty is earned daily by good policy and good UX.

Competition between network states drives a Cambrian explosion in governance experiments: opt‑in tax codes, reputation‑weighted voting, quadratic public‑goods funding, zero‑knowledge judiciary.

What was mandatory and constant is now optional and a variable.

Abundance of Choice

We want choice of law the way we have choice of cloud region.

A plurality of polities prevents a monopoly of mistakes.

When citizens bundle identity, property, and values into an NFT‑backed passport, they can port their lives between jurisdictions as easily as moving a repo.

Not Anarchy, but Polyarchy

This is not secession by siege engine.

It is seduction by better product and alignment between individual and group.

We are peaceful because violence doesn’t scale, but blockchains, broadband, and brotherhood does.

Becoming Founders

To build a network state is to found a moral startup.

Founders are diplomats, dev‑rel, and mayors in one.

Code and media enable permissionless leverage, aligning technology with culture.

Every citizen is a partial founder, a liquidity provider in the national treasury, a node in the civic mesh.

An active network state participant is an engaged citizen with skin in the game.

Values of the Network State

• Moral Purpose – one commandment that unifies its citizens in zeal.

• Voluntarism – no forced membership, ever.

• Transparency – chain beats paper, hashes beat seals.

• Polycentric Law – many sovereignties, interoperable by protocol.

• Merit + Mercy – reputation scores with redemption and justice.

• Civic Skin‑in‑the‑Game – staked tokens, staked identity.

• Diaspora-rooted Solidarity – Physically split in body, mentally unified in mind.

• Open-Sourced – Replicate, audit, and fork.

• Peace – re-alignment by non-violence.

The Opposition

Bureaucracies that fear audit, cartels that fear exit, pundits that fear losing the captive audience, central banks that fear losing their monopoly on value.

They will label us utopian, colonial, LARPers (The Week).

They will litigate, regulate, and pontificate.

We will ship.

The Horizon

Millions already co‑rise in digital tribes, trade in borderless money, meet in VR, and crowdfund real‑world enclaves (NS.com).

The question is not if cloud polities will calcify into states, but how many, and how soon.

Our children will choose citizenship like we choose email providers, and will abandon bad rulers as casually as deleting bad apps on their phone.

There is a live dashboard where you can track 100+ existing network states.

Call to Build

We owe the past new blueprints, and the future new frontiers.

It’s time to be Network‑Optimists.

It’s time to fork governance, merge freedom, and deploy v1.0 of the next civilization.

It’s time to build states that scale.