The Dutch city of Amsterdam is no stranger to international conferences dedicated to cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and decentralization, having recently hosted the Network Nation conference, which explored decentralization on a completely different level.
Conference speakers and attendees gathered to discuss and debate whether new forms of devolved statehood were possible.
The conference kicked off with an energetic moderator leading the crowd in chants and shouting out the conference’s name, before Balaji Srinivasan, entrepreneur, investor and former CTO of Coinbase, took the stage. Opening remarks. In his original speech, Srinivasan asked: “Is a new nation possible?”
in his Book network status, Srinivasan proposed that the new nation could be realized through a new type of digital community, whose members use blockchain and cryptocurrencies to host their social and economic institutions, with boundaries located on either side of crowdfunded land owned by community nodes.
A node might start with just a small group of friends, and the idea is that this small community organizes itself to raise funds, expand, and eventually form a viable network node. When you have multiple coordinated community nodes, regardless of their geographic distribution, you have the foundation for network presence.
Proponents of cyber states have many goals, but they primarily hope to create a parallel social infrastructure as a “competitive product” to what they see as a flawed system of state-level social, political, and economic institutions, thereby empowering the citizens of these states to— The state has the ability to opt out if existing social structures prove insufficient to meet their needs and aspirations.
Ivy Astrix, a vibecamp member and long-time supporter of Srinivasan, told Cointelegraph that a common theme among attendees was disillusionment with those in power. “Can these very cohesive societies in the United States still function? I don’t think they can,” she said.
Amid growing disillusionment with existing social structures, Asterix said network states “can improve the lives of ‘normal’ people (…) because they encourage co-creative lifestyles rather than just Putting yourself into something that already exists simply because it is the ‘best’ or ‘least worst’ option.”
The connection between network state and blockchain technology is undeniable, as both rely on autonomous nodes that come together to form a network with an agreed-upon set of rules. Cryptorails are the spiritual gold standard for online state concepts, especially in finance.
Frederik Zwilling of Galatica Network spoke to Cointelegraph about the alliance’s utility:
“Users won’t enter a network state on their own unless there’s a lot of benefit to that network state or something they want to do that appeals to them.”
Zwilling added that decentralized cryptocurrency-based solutions are necessary for the governance of community groups, especially those that require similar national-level social infrastructure.
Physical implementation of network status
Infrastructure development to support the concept of network state is evolving over a multi-decade time frame, with projects such as Prospera, Cabin, and Praxis focusing on community building, fundraising efforts, and building physical locations (nodes) that may ultimately form the real-world network state.
Many speakers engaged in exploratory conversations with governments of existing nation-states on land ownership, borders and the formation of special economic zones.
Still, no community has yet achieved the degree of autonomy from legacy systems that proponents of the network state concept espouse.
Prospera’s flagship startup city, Bay of St. John, comes close to meeting these criteria, but is still largely governed by traditional institutions, in this case the Honduran government.
Building a parallel society is a task that will take decades to complete, and in order to achieve the network effects required for a minimally viable society, the process must begin with the community building witnessed at the conference.
The quality of the physical infrastructure is impressive given the early stages of the state of the network, and the concept itself seems reasonable, but to move beyond wealthy futurists taking over a resort, more time, money, and manpower will be needed infrastructure to make opting out a viable option.
The democratization of governance through technology, particularly blockchain, is a major pillar of the cyberstate concept and is critical to the real-world infrastructure presented at the conference.
Dom Ryder, founder of Vemp Studios, told Cointelegraph, “This is about providing a way to promote democracy and democratic values on an immutable and trustless blockchain; to me, this is the obvious use case for (network state).”
The challenge, Ryder continued, is to make blockchain accessible to “ordinary people” while moving past the public’s negative perceptions of the technology and ensuring its benefits are seamlessly integrated into ordinary people’s lives.
Align individuals
One might think that many of the speakers at the Network Nations conference were simply proposing novel approaches that fell essentially into the category of “virtual community building,” but this line of thinking may not fully reflect the coherence and flexibility of their shared perspectives. Target.
Proponents of the Network State do not propose a one-size-fits-all approach to social cohesion but rather an open system in which you get out what you put in, with as few intermediaries as possible between action and effect. .
Communities are a fundamental component of all aspects of society, and history has proven that a critical mass of communities with a common goal will at least reach the implementation stage of that goal. Success is never taken for granted, but the power of network effects cannot be denied.
Virtual communities attending the conference, ranging from X-based vivicamp and Coordinape’s decentralized autonomous organization infrastructure, to mature digital nation-states such as Plumia and Galatica Network, all have one thing in common: a community-first approach to implementing their plans for the Internet. National Vision.
Attendees are working towards achieving the necessary population numbers for parallel societies to form and provide the necessary digital infrastructure to meet some or all of humanity’s basic needs, whether financial, political or social.
The Network Nation Conference is a melting pot of people and ideas that challenge the status quo, and a small stop on the journey of human development.
Pragmatic minds may turn to the inescapable fact that the cyberstate paradigm depends on the acceptance or even outright failure of current social infrastructure.
Yet the sheer will and monumental human effort on display here is enough to make one suspend disbelief—if only temporarily.
Svlook
