a16z Backs: Crypto Geeks' Crowdfunded Nation-Building Ambitions
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a16z Backs: Crypto Geeks' Crowdfunded Nation-Building Ambitions
Network states not only hope existing governments will submit to corporations, allowing them to act as they please, but also aim to replace governments with corporations.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsText: Gabriel Gatehouse
Translation: BitpushNews Shawn
Do you look ahead to the upcoming U.S. presidential election and wonder whether democracy might be in trouble amid future political turmoil? A group of tech entrepreneurs backed by vast Silicon Valley wealth feels the same way.
Imagine being able to choose your nationality as easily as selecting a gym membership. This is the vision of the future proposed by Balaji Srinivasan. Balaji—like Madonna, he goes by one name—is a rock star in the crypto world. As an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, he firmly believes that nearly every function currently performed by governments can be done better by technology.
Last autumn, I saw Balaji present his ideas firsthand in a large conference hall on the outskirts of Amsterdam. Pacing slowly across the stage, he asked: "We can start companies like Google; we can build new communities like Facebook; we can create new currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. So why not create new nations?" Dressed in a slightly baggy gray suit with a loose tie, he looked less like a rock star and more like a mid-level manager from a corporate accounting department. But don’t be fooled by appearances—Balaji was once a partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), one of Silicon Valley’s most powerful venture capital firms, and he has deep financial backing.
Silicon Valley thrives on “disruption.” Tech startups have spent years upending traditional media, and now they’re moving into education, finance, space travel, and beyond. Balaji told the audience: "Imagine thousands of startups replacing different traditional institutions. They coexist alongside existing systems, gradually attracting users and building strength until they become the new mainstream."
If startups can replace these traditional institutions, Balaji reasoned, they could also replace nation-states. He calls this concept the “Network State”—a startup nation. Here's how it works: first, communities form online around shared interests or values; then, these communities acquire physical land and evolve into sovereign entities with their own laws. These states would coexist with current nation-states, eventually supplanting them. You’d choose your nationality like selecting an internet service provider, becoming a citizen of whichever network state aligns with your ideals.
Excessive corporate influence in governance is nothing new. The term “banana republic” originated from the United Fruit Company, an American corporation that effectively ruled Guatemala for decades starting in the 1930s. Beyond owning vast tracts of land, it controlled railroads, postal services, and telegraph lines. When the Guatemalan government tried to resist, the CIA helped United Fruit orchestrate a coup.
But the ambition behind the Network State movement appears even greater. It doesn’t just want governments to defer to corporations so businesses can operate freely—it wants to replace governments entirely with corporations.
Some critics see the Network State idea as a form of neocolonialism, replacing elected leaders with corporate autocrats serving shareholder interests. Others view it as a response to the heavy regulatory burdens faced by Western democracies today. Sounds like a fantasy dreamed up by tech bros? In fact, early prototypes of Network States already exist.
At the Amsterdam event, several tech entrepreneurs presented these “startup societies.” Among them were Cabin, a modern rural network city spread across locations in the U.S. and Portugal; and Culdesac, a community in Arizona designed specifically for remote workers.
Balaji’s Network State concept builds upon “charter cities”—special economic zones similar to free ports. Several such projects are underway around the world, including in Nigeria and Zambia. At a recent rally in Las Vegas, Donald Trump promised that if re-elected in November, he would open federal land in Nevada to create new special districts with “ultra-low taxes and ultra-light regulation,” aiming to attract new industries, build affordable housing, and generate jobs. He said the plan would revive the “pioneer spirit and the American Dream.”
Culdesac and Cabin resemble online communities that have established territorial footholds. Próspera, located off the coast of Honduras, is different—it bills itself as a “private city” serving entrepreneurs and promoting longevity science, offering unregulated gene therapies to slow aging.
Próspera is operated by a for-profit company registered in Delaware and previously enjoyed legislative autonomy under special policies granted by Honduras’ former government. However, President Xiomara Castro now seeks to revoke those privileges and has begun stripping away some of its special rights. In response, Próspera has filed a $10.8 billion lawsuit against the Honduran government.
A Free-Market Crypto City
During the day’s presentations, a young man in a gray hoodie named Dryden Brown took the stage. He announced plans to build a new city-state somewhere along the Mediterranean coast—one not governed by a sprawling national bureaucracy but instead by blockchain, the technology underlying cryptocurrencies. Its founding principles would center on ideas like “vitality” and “heroic virtue.” He called it “Praxis,” derived from the ancient Greek word meaning “action.” The first citizens, he said, could move in by 2026.
Details remained vague. Where exactly would people move? Who would build the infrastructure? Who would govern? On stage, Dryden fiddled with a remote control and displayed a slide claiming hundreds of billions in capital backing Praxis.
For now, the “Praxis community” exists mostly online. You can apply to become a citizen on their website. But who these citizens actually are remains unclear. Dryden showed another slide featuring a “Pepe” frog meme—a sad cartoon frog that became a mascot for the alt-right during Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Within this niche world of startup nations, Praxis is known for its edginess. They’ve hosted legendary parties: candlelit dinners in massive lofts in Manhattan where introverted programmers mingled with fashionable models and figures from the “Dark Enlightenment,” including blogger Curtis Yarvin, who advocates for a totalitarian future ruled by corporate “monarchs.” Yarvin’s ideas are sometimes described as fascist, which he denies. Attendees at these events are required to sign NDAs, and journalists are typically unwelcome.
After his talk, I approached Dryden Brown to chat. He seemed guarded and aloof, but still gave me his phone number. I messaged him several times trying to set up a conversation, but received no reply.
About six months later, I saw an intriguing notification on X: “Praxis Magazine launch. Tomorrow night. Copy your favorite page.” No time or location was given—just a link to apply for attendance. I applied but got no response. So the next morning, I texted Dryden Brown again. To my surprise, he replied immediately: “10 p.m., Ella Funt.”
Ella Funt is a bar and nightclub in Manhattan, formerly Club 82—a legendary venue in New York’s LGBTQ+ scene. In the 1950s, writers and artists would drink cocktails served by tuxedo-clad women and watch drag performances in the basement. Now, it was hosting a private party for people trying to build new nations—and somehow, I had been invited. But I was in Utah, 2,000 miles away. If I wanted to make it, I’d have to book a flight immediately.
I arrived among the first guests. The venue was nearly empty, with only a few Praxis staff placing magazines around the bar. I flipped through one: printed on thick, high-quality paper, filled with seemingly random ads—perfume, 3D-printed guns, and milk. Like the Pepe frog, milk is also an internet meme. In alt-right circles, posting an image of a milk carton symbolizes white supremacy.
The magazine encouraged readers to “copy pages and paste them around your town”—a physical analog to viral internet culture. A photocopier had even been brought into the bar for this purpose.
A group of young people entered, some wearing cowboy boots—but they didn’t quite look like real outdoorsmen. I struck up a conversation with one who introduced himself as Zack, an “crypto cowboy” from Milton Keynes (wearing a leather cowboy hat).
“I kind of embody the wild frontier spirit of America,” he said. “I feel like we’re on the edge of pioneering something new.”
Many associate cryptocurrency with scams—highly volatile digital money whose value can vanish overnight. But in the world of Network States, they love crypto. They see it as the currency of the future—a form of money beyond government control.
Next, I spoke with someone who called himself Az. I asked for his last name. He smiled and said, “Mandias”—a reference to Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias”: King of Kings Ozymandias. Anonymity is a core part of crypto culture. I sensed none of the people at this party were giving me their real names.
Az is originally from Bangladesh but grew up in Queens, New York. He founded a tech startup. He believes that just as the printing press helped collapse feudalism in Europe 500 years ago, today’s new technologies—cryptocurrency, blockchain, and AI—will bring down democratic nation-states.
“Democracy is obviously great,” he said, “but the best ruler is a moral dictator. Some call it a ‘philosopher-king.’”
The Rise of Corporate Monarchies?
Az expressed excitement about standing “on the edge of an impending renaissance.” But before that renaissance, he predicted a Luddite backlash against new technologies—one that would destroy millions of jobs and monopolize the global economy. Still, he believes the Luddites will ultimately fail.
He anticipates the transition to what he calls the next stage of human societal evolution—the Network State era—will be violent and “Darwinian.”
Rather than disturbed by this prospect, Az seemed thrilled by the idea of new kings rising from the ruins of democracy: corporate autocrats ruling over their digital empires.
I walked over to the bar and bought a drink. There, I met two people who didn’t seem to fit the crypto crowd. Yazira was a manager at another nearby nightclub; her friend Dylan was a student. They appeared to have been invited to add flair to the party—after all, this was essentially a gathering of crypto bros and computer geeks. Yet they had thoughts of their own about the whole Network State concept.
“What if you don’t have enough hospital staff or schoolteachers?” Dylan asked. “It’s unrealistic to build a city without any government.” Yazira found the whole idea dystopian. “We wanted to see what a ‘real’ cult gathering looks like,” she joked half-seriously.
Just then, Dryden Brown appeared—the co-founder of Praxis. He stepped outside for a smoke, and I followed. He told me the Praxis magazine was meant to showcase the kind of new culture they hope to build. Praxis, he said, is about “embracing the pioneer spirit” and “heroic virtue.”
I doubted Dryden would last long in any actual frontier. He looked utterly exhausted by it all. I wanted to ask him tough questions about the Network State project: Who gets to be a citizen in this new world? Who governs it? What about those far-right memes? And—as Dylan put it—who staffs the hospitals?
But we kept getting interrupted by more arrivals. Dryden invited me to visit the “Praxis Embassy” the next day. We said our goodbyes and went back inside, where the party was growing increasingly wild. Yazira, Dylan, and a few friends who looked like models climbed onto the photocopier—not copying magazine pages, but parts of their bodies. I grabbed a copy of the magazine and left.
Back in my small Airbnb above Chinatown, I flipped through the magazine. Alongside white supremacist memes and gun ads was a QR code. Scanning it led to a short film: a 20-minute indictment of the emptiness of modern life, a eulogy for a lost world of hierarchy and heroism.
What Does It All Mean?
“You are entertained and satisfied,” a voiceover intoned. “You appear productive. But you are not great.” It spoke of algorithms that make you “hate yourself and your own civilization.”
In the video, an animated figure points a gun directly at the viewer.
“Contemporary media claims that holding any ideal is fascism,” the voice continued. “Everything with conviction is labeled fascism.”
Is this an invitation to embrace the fascist label? The movement seems to long for a specific kind of Western culture—a Nietzschean world where the strongest survive, and chaos and destruction give birth to greatness.
The next day, I visited the “Praxis Embassy”—a massive loft on Broadway. Sure enough, bookshelves were lined with Nietzsche, biographies of Napoleon, and a copy of *The Dictator’s Handbook*. I stayed for a while, but Dryden Brown never showed up.
As I left, I kept wondering what I had witnessed the night before: Was this a glimpse of the future—a world where countries like the U.S. and U.K. fracture into a network of corporate-run societies, allowing you to choose your citizenship freely? Or were Dryden Brown and his friends merely engaging in performance art, tech bros role-playing as alt-right revolutionaries to mock the system and enjoy a wild party?
Will Dryden Brown one day become a CEO-king ruling an alt-right empire across the Mediterranean? I doubt it. But there are indeed serious efforts underway to create more autonomous regions, free ports, and charter cities. And if democracy falters, the Network State movement appears ready and waiting in the wings.
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