Status of The Network State: Tech and Crypto Cities and Colonial Projects
The Network State is a conspiracy of tech multi-billionaires to establish their own sovereign nation through a series of distributed, tech and crypto cities and colonial projects.
The Network State centers on sovereignty above all: their own government; escape from regulation, taxation and accountability; and unregulated medical experimentation, crypto and AI development. It enables predation of countries in the global south and across the world, a new age of colonization, and the growth of unchecked power and wealth. Many of the developments described here are related to the same funding sources, in particular, Pronomos Capital, a firm funded by Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel and Balaji Srinivasan, chief evangelist for the Network State. Pronomos is funding a number of Network State sites across the globe.
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Honduras - Próspera
Venture capitalists, via their firm Pronomos Capital, are operating a sovereign city in Honduras called Próspera. The country, and the communities of Roatán — the island where Próspera is located — have been organizing and fighting back against corporate colonialism. The site sits on a special economic zone, called ZEDEs in Honduras.
Próspera entered Honduras via legislation under a corrupt narco administration installed following the US-backed military coup in 2009. Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández “was president of the National Congress, Honduras’s legislative body, from 2010 to 2013, and was a primary mover of the ZEDEs legislation. He also led the overnight takeover of the Supreme Court that enabled their implementation.” After extradition, Hernández has just been sentenced to 45 years in US federal prison for “conspiring to distribute more than 400 tons of cocaine and related firearms offenses.”
Under the new, democratically elected administration of Xiomara Castro, Honduras is trying to expel Próspera as a threat to its sovereignty. In 2022 Honduras repealed the legislation that allowed Próspera after community-led resistance; however, Próspera venture capitalists retaliated and are suing the country for $11 billion, two-thirds of the country’s annual budget, in the controversial Investor–State Dispute Settlement court.
Próspera is fully operational and has residential and mixed use facilities, a school, full-time residents, and has registered over 100 businesses. It has raised $90 million. Próspera is performing unregulated medical testing, hosting large influxes of crypto “digital nomads”, and expanding its land footprint, with a new settlement on the other end of the island, which would leave the island effectively sandwiched between the two sites. They have an additional port site on the mainland. Próspera continues to operate with cryptocurrency despite Honduras outlawing its use by financial institutions in 2024. This demonstrates how Próspera operates as a sovereign entity on Honduran soil.
Próspera is conducting unregulated medical experimentation, via venture-capital backed startup Minicircle. Minicircle is openly conducting controversial gene therapies. Experiment participants have been paid in crypto. The ethics and scientific validity of these medical treatments have been condemned by medical experts while Honduran medical professionals demand Minicircle be shut down altogether. “...the scientific community of Honduras requests, first, that these experiments be investigated and provided with a technical opinion by the Biotechnology Committee, and, second, that they be stopped, as they could represent a clear violation of human rights and cause biological damage if germs and biochemicals are released on the Island of Roatan and its surroundings.” Additionally, Próspera is the homebase of Vitalia, a “district” within Próspera that wants to build a new city “to make death optional”.
Próspera is expanding. Earlier this year, they announced Próspera Africa, with the goal of bringing Próspera’s model to the African continent. This joins other Pronomos Capital colonial projects in Africa, which are detailed further in this document. Additionally, the CEO of Próspera met with human rights abuser and dictator, Nayib Bukele, in late 2023 to discuss bringing Próspera to El Salvador, stating “At a crucial moment for ZEDEs, we're thrilled about the possibility of collaborating with El Salvador and continuing to expand horizons for Próspera.” Information on the scope of venture colonialism in El Salvador is found further in this document.
Solano County, California – California Forever / East Solano Project
In Solano County, venture capitalists amassed $800 million of land over 5 years for a new city, without any kind of public knowledge, and secured it “using secrecy, bullying and mobster tactics to force generational farm families to sell.” The purchase totals over 52,000 acres of farmland. The purpose is to build a private, techno-utopian, billionaire city. Here is the same pattern of using secretive financial vehicles and aggressive legal strategies, in a land grab on a community of predominantly people of color. Unlike the colonial projects in the global south, this case has sparked massive media attention.
The effort to build a new city in Solano County is backed by the same money as the Network State sites laid out in this document. The Solano County land grab is being led by Marc Andreessen, of Andreessen Horowitz and Pronomos Capital, with a number of other investors closely tied to Andreessen and his firms. The plan proposes bringing in a number of venture-backed startups, including weapons companies, robotics, drone delivery and a conservative media company.
Solano County is fighting back. Multiple community groups have formed to resist the project, including Solano Together and California ForNever. Public meetings on the matter have seen protestors and public dissent. Citizens express concerns about inequality, living costs, environmental damage, changing demographics, the extremist ideologies of the tech billionaires, and the destruction of farmland, water and natural resources. In order to rescue its reputation and confuse the public, the California Forever billionaires have changed their name to East Solano Plan.
The Solano site is important because this is a “flagship” city and will set the model for other locations; just like how the pattern of invasion in San Francisco and Oakland in the first and second bubbles, including displacement and gentrification and labor exploitation, now plays out in countries around the world. California Forever/East Solano Plan is currently on the ballot in November.
El Salvador - A Case Study in Venture Capital and Crypto Transformation
El Salvador highlights how venture capital’s interests are invading vulnerable governments and economies. In these countries, venture capitalists are able to set up their crypto-based financial system, escape regulation and taxation, obtain land and sovereignty, and gain access to natural resources to power datacenters and other technology projects.
El Salvador has been a VC-supported dictatorship since the installation of Nayib Bukele, who is now in an unconstitutional second term. El Salvador is now called “Bitcoin Country” due to its adoption of the cryptocurrency. Foreign venture capitalists and crypto kingpins are installed in the government (Stacey Hebert, Max Keiser, Saifedean Ammous). El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as officially recognized currency, met by thousands of protestors in the country’s capital: “The demonstrators gathered in the capital San Salvador on the 200th anniversary of the country's independence, brandishing placards reading ‘No to Bitcoin’ and ‘Respect the Constitution’. They accuse the president of using authoritarian means to tighten his grip on power.”
Multiple large-scale crypto and technology projects are underway. They are building “Bitcoin City”, a smart city that will be funded by Bitcoin and take the architecture/design of Bitcoin’s signature logo. Of Bitcoin City, Bukele has said “We will have no income tax, forever. No income tax, zero property tax, no procurement tax, zero city tax, and zero CO2 emissions ... The only taxes that they will have in Bitcoin City is VAT, half will be used to pay the municipality's bonds and the rest for the public infrastructure and maintenance of the city.” Bukele has already introduced massive tax incentives for venture capital and the crypto class and suspended regulation on its development.
El Salvador is building a Bitcoin mine on a national volcano, planning to harness wind and solar energy; the deals are structured so that more of the proceeds will go to the investors, as opposed to the country itself. They are also building a private airport to facilitate an influx of venture capital and tech. Bukele is offering citizenship to the foreign tech class for $1 million Bitcoin.
This economic transformation benefitting the foreign tech class occurs against a backdrop of mass human rights abuses and a hunger crisis. To make way for its transformation into “Bitcoin Country”, El Salvador has locked up over 77,000 people in a newly constructed mega-prison; the country and its dictator are internationally cited, including by Amnesty International, for human rights violations. People are routinely tortured and killed in the prison. As the venture capital invasion continues, the independent press had to re-locate to Costa Rica and environmental activists have been arrested. Like we have seen in the Bay Area, the arrival of tech wealth and development leads to incarceration, wealth gaps, gentrification and erosion of civil liberties.
The large scale crypto and tech projects, like Bitcoin City, will require significant labor – and Bukele recently announced that prisoners, many locked up with little or no due process, will be used in such efforts. He stated via X: “Thousands of non-dangerous prisoners, including associates of gang members (though not gang members themselves), are being trained to help us rebuild our country. In this way, they can repair part of the damage they have caused to society.” Aside from his admission that these prisoners – 48,000 to start – are non-violent, non-gang members, locked up under the pretense of a war on gangs – this has raised significant concerns about forced and slave labor.
Christian missionaries have been involved in developing the tech colonial agenda in El Salvador for a long time and have been integral to this transformation. “For years, Michael Peterson, a 47-year-old evangelical Christian from California, had hosted Christian missionaries at a retreat in El Zonte (in El Salvador), where he and his family had lived for years… Peterson decided to work with members of El Zonte’s community to create a circular bitcoin economy, or market where people buy and sell goods with bitcoin. A gifted publicist, he painted his project in El Zonte as a great success, and the Salvadoran president cited it as an inspiration when announcing that the country would become the first in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender.” Michael Peterson has also been active in Guatemala.
Mediterranean - “Praxis Nation”
Pronomos Capital and other closely associated venture capitalists are planning a city in an undisclosed location in the Mediterranean, called Praxis. Their website openly states they are trying to build a new nation. Praxis has raised close to $20 million to date from Pronomos Capital venture capitalists and their associates, including Sam Altman and Joe Lonsdale of the PayPal Mafia.
Praxis has focused for several years on raising capital and residents for the site. Via Praxis: “Thousands of exceptional community members have gathered at Praxis events around the world. We’ve convened summits, shared dinners, hosted galas — fostering an environment where our members, even prior to the construction of the city, have built strong connections to one another.” They have over 2,200 citizens to date – each of whom has been issued a “Steel Visa” – and have registered nearly 150 businesses to operate on their site. Praxis’ initial goal is to have 10,000 residents/commercial tenants move into the area after preliminary construction.
Their website has stated Praxis is “now in the final stage of site selection,” that they have retained “Pritzker-winning architects”, and also has claimed to be in “active negotiations with prospective host governments,” with delegation “led by a former G7 Prime Minister and a former EU Prime Minister,” identities undisclosed. Some of these updates have since been removed from the site. Its exact status is unknown.
An investigative media profile describes Praxis as “a free-market Mediterranean city-state” which “the company hopes to build under the leadership of a CEO who, former employees said, is interested in fascist authors and occultism and has touted a book that argues Black people are intellectually inferior to whites.” The article details accounts and associations of the Praxis CEO and employees with Nazi-ism, occultism, race science and various fascist ideologies; the account is substantial and another piece of evidence that venture colonialism is fascist in character, and is being spearheaded by fascists.
Afropolitan
Afropolitan, launched in 2022, is a Pronomos Capital project targeting the African continent. It is explicitly and openly a Network State project. They also have a direct investment from Balaji Srinivasan, author of The Network State. The initial community started out in an Andreessen Horowitz-funded social media app, Clubhouse.
Like other Pronomos projects, and according to the plans for the Network State, Afropolitan intends to use digital organization to acquire a physical city. From an interview in Wired Japan: “Afropolitan is a decentralized online community made up of ‘citizens’ scattered around the world, but it has the idea of eventually acquiring physical land around the world and building a ‘territory’-like infrastructure called ‘Afrotown.’” They will be modeling Afropolitan hubs after embassies, which are considered sovereign territory despite being in a foreign country. Ultimately, they “aim to be accepted by the United Nations,” the ultimate goal of the Network State.
They have sold out of 500 “Mint Citizen Passes,” which are digitized NFT passport IDs similar to Praxis’ Steel Visas. They plan to launch the Afropolitan Super App, and recently launched its own venture firm, Afropolitan Ventures, to provide funding to its community and early stage startups. They aim to do at least 5 deals per year.
Afropolitan is an example of how venture capitalists and the Network State movement are able to co-opt the sincere efforts of oppressed and marginalized groups, funnel them into the conspiracy, and use them as a front for their broader agenda.
Nigeria - Itana
Venture capitalists, via Pronomos Capital, have secured a sovereign zone outside of Lagos, and outside of the jurisdiction of Nigeria despite being located on Nigerian soil. The zone is called Itana and it has participation from a number of venture capitalists as well as crypto company Binance, which will provide Itana with its own crypto-based economic system. Nine communities were displaced without proper compensation to make way for the zone.
Itana is providing business incorporation, offshore banking, immigration and other business services; this is a pattern we see across other Network State sites. They offer tax incentives, roads around regulation for tech and crypto businesses, 100% capital repatriation, 0 company tax and VAT, and to transact in foreign currency. Itana is described as “Nigeria’s first free zone for digital, technology, and financial services businesses,” with a special focus on startups. They are currently building the “Itana 100”, the first 100 companies registered through Itana.
Itana announced a $2 million raise from Pronomos Capital in 2023 to further the project, and has raised a total of $4 million. It is partnered with the Charter Cities Institute, another Network State financial vehicle, as well as Adrianople Group. It lists the Network State as an official partner.
Construction on the physical “startup city” is underway as of 2023. “Itana’s website displays photographs of the marshy plot where construction is due to start, juxtaposed with artistic renderings of what the tech hub should one day look like: a verdant business park which features snaking grass-covered walkways and sunlit decks housing breakout groups. The first stage of construction aims to house 3,000 to 5,000 people, and will cost up to $500 million…” The site is 72,000 square meters.
Nigeria has also been facing massive labor exploitation by venture capital. Ride-share drivers have formed a union, Amalgamated Union of App-based Transport Workers of Nigeria (AUATWON), and have been fighting and striking for recognition: “A big test on national and constitutional supremacy over dictatorial app supremacy. If drivers are not workers, are they slaves?” In May 2024, content moderators and AI data labellers for Facebook, ScaleAI and OpenAI – all funded by the same people behind Pronomos Capital – wrote an open letter to President Biden, stating “US Big Tech companies are systemically abusing and exploiting African workers. In Kenya, these US companies are undermining the local labor laws, the country’s justice system and violating international labor standards. Our working conditions amount to modern day slavery.”
→ We see similar patterns of labor exploitation by venture capital across Kenya, connected to the same money as Pronomos Capital. Former OpenAI moderators reported serious mental health concerns after being exposed to extremely violent content, with no prior warning about what they would be exposed to, along with severely exploitative wages between $1.46 and $3.74 an hour. Meta has also been a major culprit in exploiting labor via contracting firms. Worldcoin servers in Nairobi were seized after authorities suspended local iris-scanning operations, sparking international outcry about biometric surveillance; they are scheduled to resume operations shortly. OpenAI, Meta and Worldcoin are all backed by the same small group of venture capitalists, who are also behind Pronomos Capital and the Network State.
Palau / The Philippines - Metropolis
Metropolis started in Palau and has since branched out into the Philippines. It announced a residential location in Manila Bay via private mailing list earlier this year. Metropolis’ “chief evangelist and founding strategic advisor” is Patri Friedman, the founder of Pronomos Capital.
Metropolis has published a document, “Cityscapes of Tomorrow”, that lays out their vision. “We envision a new city pilot project that takes learnings from multiple successful projects and begins with an enclave of like-minded digital settlers. This digital community will form the initial interest base for a yet-to-be-named physical hub (or hubs). The community will then play a role in designing the concept for an initial settlement and have a stake in the overall success as the settlement evolves from a small enclave into a full-scale metropolis… Metropolis believes in setting up the optimal and attractive legal environment first, taking input from existing digital nomad communities.”
Like other Pronomos projects, Metropolis has started by setting up infrastructure for businesses and digital residents to operate in a host country and take advantage of special economic zones and special negotiations with the host government. They offer digital residency in Palau and residency by investment in the Philippines.
They have also announced a tokenization platform, Turtle X, for the Pacific Island Nations. Tokenization allows assets like land, housing and developments to be divided into many “tokens”, which allows things like crowdfunding and fractional ownership of Network State projects and developments. TurtleX “empowers project developers to gain immediate access to capital and sales opportunities from a decentralized source and community, lowering financial risks, and accelerating development in a larger area. These opportunities are then made available to the global investor community.” Their first project is a network of co-living spaces in Taiwan.
Palau has been active in the Network State movement at the highest levels of government, with the president of Palau featured on a Network State podcast, discussing “how the tiny island country is becoming a digital leader, experimenting with everything from on-chain identity to drone delivery. Despite having less than 20,000 citizens, Palau is a full UN member state. Its path to diplomatic recognition holds many lessons for aspiring founders of new communities.” Importantly, Palau is an important strategic maritime military location at the center of U.S/China rivalry in the Pacific; venture capitalists associated with Pronomos Capital have been key figures in aggravating tensions with China over technological development.
Palau hosted the Palau Blockchain Summit in August 2023, with a conference track focusing on “network states and charter zones”. Speakers included the founder of Ethereum, the Minister of France, and the founder of the Seasteading Institute. Palau’s government is heavily positioning itself as a site of “crypto tourism”, highlighting the country’s appeal to bring in crypto wealth.
→ CitizenX is an offering from a company called The Network State Company, funded by Network State evangelist Balaji Srnivasan and venture capitalist Tim Draper. Like Metropolis, it focuses on key connective tissue for the Network State, aiming to make it easier and faster for Network State aspirants and digital nomads to gain foreign citizenship. It offers El Salvador’s $1,000,000 Bitcoin citizenship, and citizenships to locations with no residency requirements, including St Kitts ($260,000), Egypt ($250,000) and Montenegro ($483,400). Benefits detailed include “tax friendly jurisdictions that safeguard your wealth”, citizenship as a “generational asset”, “diversify your portfolio with investments in other regions,” and security “from political unrest and social turmoil with a safe, physical location you can turn to as needed.” CitizenX also provides a platform for real estate investment for citizenship, including fractional shares in development projects. The project’s focus is on “high net worth individuals” and posts content about which countries are gaining and losing millionaire citizens, making it clear who is imagined as residents/citizens of the Network State.
Zuzalu
Zuzalu is a Network State project that is operating as a floating mini-state. It began in 2023 and has appeared as a pop-up city at numerous locations and events. It is tied to the cryptocurrency Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin. Zuzalu was co-founded by the founder of Ethereum itself. Zuzalu highlights how Network States can emerge directly from crypto currencies, which already operate outside of the existing financial and national systems.
Topically, Zuzalu has focused on biotech and longevity, the Network State and other disruptive government models. Their first effort was a 200-person, two month long pop-up city in Montenegro, with “the goal of developing a less costly and time-consuming version of Bryan Johnson’s extreme longevity lifestyle.” A third of the attendees were digital nomads, pointing to the importance of this demographic.
Zuzalu has appeared at Vitalia, based in the Próspera settlement. They ran an event in Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania, Africa, from May - June 2024, with tracks for Network States and a startup weekend for African entrepreneurs. A Zuzalu-related/inspired event across June, Edge Esmerelda, was a month-long gathering as “a first step toward a permanent new town, Esmeralda” in Healdsburg, California. Other upcoming events this year include month-long temporary settlements in Switzerland, Italy and India.
Zuzalu points to the growth of floating, semi-temporary, mobile community tissue that builds residency and engagement in the Network State. It points to a strategy for bootstrapping a Network State that has a relatively low starting cost and can be based in more advanced Network State sites like Próspera, relying on existing digital nomads to create its first communities.
Network State Crypto Projects
Recent chatter on “Crypto Twitter” (CT) shows a number of crypto projects starting, dovetailing or evolving into Network State projects. Crypto users are already the dominant base of the Network State – as cryptocurrency is the economic structure of the Network State – but new developments show that the Network State is increasing its ideological footprint and penetration across the crypto sphere.
Solana, the third largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin and Ethereum, is hosting a Network State “sister conference” at its upcoming Breakpoint Community conference. The Solana Foundation tweeted, with 2.7 million followers: “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.”
Cardano is one of the largest cryptocurrencies, started by the co-founder of Ethereum. ADA, its coin, has a $13.8 billion market cap. Cardano has recently published its own constitution, with a project leader making the following statements: “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?”
Remilia, a right-wing extremist DAO and umbrella for a number of crypto and web 3.0 projects including the Milady NFTs, saw figureheads all tweeting the same exact message: “Remilia is the first network state”, causing it to cascade through the community.
Another extremist Network State project, called 0asis, has emerged in recent months. It is an anonymous project that calls itself a Network State. A slide deck published on their site features an image of armed militants with “keyboard guns” and carrying servers, reminiscent of the “come and take it” meme across accelerationist Twitter in 2023. Their aim 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”.