Lessons from Network State Experiments (2023–2025)
A progress report on network states that made it to land (2023-2025). What worked, what didn't?
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
URLs reflect project state as of July 27, 2025
Very interesting article!