Crypto Gets Pilled on Network State

Some concerning developments in the Network State as large crypto communities,  various coins and crypto projects, are starting to talk a lot about the Network State, and about using their crypto and community as the basis of a Network State. Basically, they are Ready to Build(tm) a Network State. 

Solana, the third largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin and Ethereum, tweeted about their upcoming community conference Breakpoint: “Breakpoint is excited to welcome The Network State sister-conference September 22! Join the full-day summit on startup societies, new cities, and even cryptocountries.” The Solana event will be running from September 20th to September 21st, and the Network State conference on the 22nd, both in Singapore. The obvious idea here being that people will come for Solana conference and hang around an extra day to attend the Network State conference. The Network State conference is even promoted as a “side event” on the Solana Breakpoint conference site. UPDATE: Breakpoint has since announced its conference line-up and the first talk after introductory remarks is “Raj & Balaji Fireside: The Solana Network State” with Balaji Srinivasan, marketing evangelist for the Network State.

 This is a huge opportunity for the Network State to onboard more crypto people into the Network State ideology and political movement. IN AND OF ITSELF, the open promotion of the Network State by the Solana Foundation itself — Solana has a market cap of $65 billion — is a huge deal.  

Then over here we have the Cardano community. Cardano is one of the largest cryptocurrencies, started by the co-founder of Ethereum. ADA is the coin, and it has a $13.8 billion market cap. Cardano has been developing its own constitution, with a project leader making numerous comments like: “I was asked recently why Cardano is working on it's own constitution. Mostly people outside of Cardano but even also within are confused. Let me clarify. Cardano is working to became a network state. All states, including network ones, must have a constitution.”  From the same source: “we are building a network state with own treasury. Most likely according to libertarian values but actually it is for people to determine it. Libertarian values simply are most compatible with current Cardano design…” and “In 5 - 10 years Cardano passports of a network state?” 

There has additionally been chatter from the Remilia community. Remilia is a very… unique and also deeply troubling collection of projects and efforts operating through a DAO, including the Milady NFTs collection. Last month, using chained tweets, community members all tweeted the same message “Remilia is the first network state”, causing it to cascade through the community. While Remilia does in parts seem to have an anti-VC ethos, there are…. Other reasons to think this isn’t exactly a good thing.  

So these are three examples of very prominent and visible communities, coins, etc. where we are starting to see the Network State agenda intersect and engulf. (And BTW to anyone from CT who found themselves here, my beef is not with you it is with the disgusting tech billionaires behind Coinbase, same ones who are running the Network State project, so re fuckin lax. The author of the Network State is ex Coinbase CTO and “ex” a16z venture capitalist, the same people who pump and dump all your shit all the time).

I’ve also been paying attention to a little anonymous project called 0asis, which claims to be “the first Network State on Bitcoin”. (This whole thing of the race to be the “the first” Network State is coming up a lot, which is interesting because these crypto communities do not seem to know about existing Network State sites like Prospera, or about the formation of Praxis which is much further along in its Network State ambitions than any of these rumblings in crypto Twitter. Nonetheless, the idea that there’s a “race” to a “first” Network State is interesting because it has this gamification within it that is gonna be really compelling to a crypto community that regularly races to different market caps or to “flip” each other, I.e. their coin becoming more valuable than a competing coin.) 

Anyhow, 0asis is some pretty freaky shit, having a militant, extremist, black and white, analog feel to it, and some pretty out-there ideology. A slide deck published on their site features an image of armed militants with “keyboard guns” and carrying servers, reminiscent of Marc Andreessen’s “come and take it” militant AI art shitposts when he was working on the “wokes are trying to steal your compute” psyop. 

0asis says its solution to world problems is to “sabotage the flows of the postmodern OS by wielding bitcoin as a guerrilla weapon”, to “fork the united nations as the first network state on Bitcoin”. They lay out “disappearance as the uprising… re-appearance for festivals as insurrections: to fight for the right to party”. Additionally “0ASIS as network state is the testnet for World War 0, metrics: population, revenue, square metres”.  

More deranged shit: 

“Through the mythos of the red apple, once a symbol of dominion and empire, we now envision a bottom-up empire, a grassroots movement, where the quest for the red apple is decentralised by the pursuit of Anarcho-Monarchism, mutual emancipation and the liberation of the commoner from the shackles of the Dragon — the neoliberal operating system.” 

This is pretty similar stylistically to Remilia where you have this schizoposting/philosophy club/statescraft mashup integrated with lush imagery, sensory details and sci-fi references/themes. 

LOL so look, with 0asis I really think the concern is not that this project becomes a physical site — tho I’m not ready to fully discount it — but it definitely has LARP-y vibes, and is interesting For the Culture: militant, libertarian, not just a little fashy. It opens up the imagination space to yet more extreme ideas of what the Network State is and looks like. Considering the open, “mainstream” vision of the Network State is already extreme and overtly fascist, the door is open to YET MORE extreme versions to play out, like that we see in 0asis, and to “dialog” with the core Network State. The game of radicalization plays out with these fringe projects and things are pushed further and further, as we have always seen with 8chan cells.

Indeed, the appearance of 0asis coincides with an uptick in violent language out of the Network State ecosystem, this on the tail of a presentation at the Network State conference in Amsterdam last October, with Spencer Macdonald, a “US Army veteran” (I wonder how many people he has killed?), on “the cybersecurity and physical security needs of startups societies and network states”. So months later on the open internet we see stuff like “crypto is boring now who wants to raise a network state with an active military”; and from a CT individual with over 90,000 followers “We need MercDAO - DAO owned and operated private army (probably mostly drone pilots but need some boots on the ground as well). Network state needs network security. Who is building this.”

YIKES. 

I would advise that we are in early days but with a backbone of “blue chip” Network State cities being established, including California Forever in Solano County, Prospera in Honduras, Praxis in undisclosed, the Itana project in Nigeria, etc., as well as major crypto strongholds set up in El Salvador and increasingly Argentina —  there is a land footprint already existing/growing within which additional colonies and projects can be spawned; I.e. Vitalia is a Network State for eternal life or whatever the fuck, that is currently based in Prospera, harbored and incubating there while it grows up. 

It’s also important to know that crypto-digital nomadism (crypto colonialism) is a key foundation for the Network State; particularly during the pandemic, people with tech and crypto wealth set off for cheap areas to live and work remotely. This has given birth to situations like we find in Costa Rica, where crypto colonizers have been trying to create a “circular economy” (where people transact in Bitcoin), through a project called Bitcoin Jungle. On a recent Twitter Space, the people behind it stated they believe there are several thousand crypto expats in Costa Rica. 

As the Network State movement grows, there are more and more people inside each country — and of course lush, tropical, warm environments where you get a lot of living for not much money — that are an anchor point for this.

In a word, there is SUBSTRATE now for things to grow. 

It is over this emerging topology, and the booming capital footprint of crypto, that these different coins, the Cardano coin ADA, SOL, etc., that are increasingly getting brought into the Network State agenda, as well as minor coins and shitcoins and alt coins that can also develop a higher consciousness if you will, like we see in Remilia. 

We are not prepared for the reality that the Network State is not going to stay a fringe and radical movement once it gets into the hands of a large crypto user base that is highly motivated to create higher-level experiences/applications on top of all the money and market cap and community connections and etc. that they are building in the bull run. Venture capitalists are experts at infiltrating and influencing these communities and are able to fund a whole lot of stuff — such as Network State conferences adjacent to major crypto conferences they also fund, that create an on-ramp  — so they can insert Network State ideology into a base of people that have already been groomed to feel indulgent and excessive in their privilege, to have a superiority complex, to exist inside a monoculture, to feel outside of regular society because they are special members of CT, who already have a mind/herd mentality, are organized in 8-chan style cells, etc.. The existing state of the crypto network (see, there it is again) is extremely vulnerable and relevant and ripe for the Network State. 

I will conclude by saying that venture capitalists are very experienced with psyops, marketing, community herding and management, etc.; and that in this case, it is a very powerful thing if they can convince people, if they can brainwash people: “what you suspected all along was true: YOU are special, YOU are different, YOU are not part of regular society, but rather, part of a new society, not a citizen of your nation, but rather, a citizen of a new, and better, nation, and some may say, race, that you can help build, with your internet friends who are also better than your real friends (if you have any), because YOU saw what crypto could BE before ANYONE else, YOU got rich off COMPLETE SCAMS because you are better than everyone and now we can scam our own COUNTRY…” 

And you see where this is going. Btw, this is an equally appealing thing to do to startup workers in general, backed by VC and already in their hands, and easily convinced of both their inherent superiority and the idea that the superiority entitles and obligates them to rob, rape, steal and pillage to gain more territory for their bosses. 

We must prepare for a reality where the Network State is going to be MAJOR in startups and in crypto… that they are going to be able to compromise people into the ideology of the Network State very easily, that those people are going to serve as a capital source, as a talent/labor source, as a marketing platform and recruitment platform, and as residents, for the Network State, and that the Network State as a result, will move much faster than we are anticipating. 

It’s gonna be a long hot summer, and the Network State will be popular by fall.