What is The Network State 

The Network State is the nation-state of tech fascists, organized through a large web of venture capital firms and startups. Their goal is to create their own sovereign, independent nation-state – one that consists of distributed colonies or “nodes”, but is funded and run by the same people, money, power, governance and legal structures. Many colonies, but one nation. These sites often exploit special economic zones, or SEZs, to gain autonomy.

The Network State is not a “pipe dream” or a fantasy of tech billionaires. The venture capitalists behind it have clearly laid out their plans in books and conferences. They have already obtained Network State settlements in Latin America and Africa, with locations in Honduras and Nigeria, as well as in the Philippines and a potential site in the Dominican Republic.

In the United States, the same group of venture capitalists are behind the land grab in Solano County, California to create a billionaire city through “California Forever”.  With the election of Trump, there has been serious movement on the development of the Network State — including OpenAI’s announcement of “AI economic zones”, Elon Musk’s announcement that SpaceX will incorporate a new city in Texas, and Trump’s “freedom cities”.

The Network State already has residential and office structures, schools, full-time residents, its own crypto economy, the participation of hundreds of startups, its own legal and regulatory frameworks, and its own medical experimentation sites. Growing out of sea-steading attempts and moving into the colonial model, the Network State is no longer aspirational for tech billionaires, but is already established, possessing key infrastructure and frameworks of a sovereign nation. 

Who is Building the Network State? 

Many of the key Network State sites are being funded through Pronomos Capital. Pronomos Capital is funded by Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Peter Thiel of Founders Fund. Balaji Srinivasan is the main “face” of the Network State and the author of the book by the same name; he is a “former” a16z venture capitalist who was spun out in order to spread the Network State ideology, build its community, and perform key marketing functions. He is listed as an advisor to Pronomos Capital. He is the figurehead of the Network State conference, held in Amsterdam in October 2023 and in Singapore, September 2024.

The site in Solano County is funded by Chris Dixon and Marc Andreessen, both of a16z, as well as Nat Friedman, the former CEO of a16z-funded Github. Additional funders include Patrick and John Collison, founders of fintech company Stripe, which was funded by a16z and Founders Fund. Also Reid Hoffman, from the “PayPal Mafia”, associated with Peter Thiel; and Daniel Gross of YCombinator, with many connections to a16z and Founders Fund. 

Existing and Planned Sites of the Network State

The effort in Solano County has been closely followed by the media, who have documented the predatory tactics, aggressive and malicious legal action, secret maneuvering and hostile orchestration of capital. However, this reporting misses out on the organized conspiracy behind California Forever, the larger plot of the Network State, and how this is unfolding globally. 

Honduras 

In Honduras, we find the most advanced Network State site, called Próspera, on the island of Roatán. The land there was obtained under duplicitous and threatening tactics, and Honduran citizens are fighting back. The current administration is trying to expel Próspera as a threat to Hondruan sovereignty. Using aggressive legal tactics like those seen in Solano County,  Próspera has retaliated by suing the country for $11 billion, ⅔ of its annual budget. Próspera is funded by Pronomos Capital. 

Próspera has constructed several structures at its primary site on the island, and is building a 14-floor mixed use facility to bring in new residents. Full time Network State residents already live on the site and they have built their own school, a “Bitcoin Academy” and other facilities. There are medical experiment facilities on the site through the startup Minicircle. Doctors and scientists in Honduras are working to stop these dangerous efforts in unregulated medical experimentation. Próspera continues to operate using cryptocurrency even though its use has been banned by the Hondruan government. They have also “registered” over 100 companies through Próspera. 

In addition to its main settlement on Roatán, Próspera has announced a site on the other end of the island, which will leave most of the island sandwiched between its settlements. Recently, Próspera announced the creation of Próspera Africa, with the goal of bringing its model to the continent. This highlights how strongholds obtained by the Network State are used as a launching pad to further colonial efforts. 

Nigeria 

Another Network State site is Itana, in Nigeria. Despite being located on Nigerian soil, it is outside of the jurisdiction of Nigeria. Like in Honduras, Itana exploits special economic and free trade zones: “When the Lagos State Government expropriated land to create the free trade zone in 2004, it signed an agreement with nine affected communities, promising compensation, alternative acreage, jobs, health care, and educational opportunities. According to a study from international researchers in the journal land, however, the government has not held up its end. Of the 56 households promised compensation, only one was allowed to negotiate the amount and only four were told how it was calculated. Less than a third actually received the money.”

Content from Pronomos Capital venture capitalists states that additional investments were made in 2023 and building is scheduled to begin this year- “pushing dirt in West Africa.” This joins the Pronomos Capital project Afropolitan, to create Network State sites across Africa.

The Philippines

The Network State has been making significant progress in the Philippines. Building out of its original base in Palau, the Pronomos project Metropolis just announced a residential site in Manila Bay via a private mailing list. While this effort is recently announced, having secured the land and capital, we can expect it to move very quickly. Metropolis has a strong focus on real estate tokenization, creating a digital ownership represented on the blockchain that can be, for example, divided up into thousands of owners of a single property. Tokenization is one technology that the Network State is bringing in its colonial growth, and is a likely site for corruption, exploitation, real estate speculation and upward wealth transfer.

Pending Location

Praxis is a planned Network State funded by Pronomos Capital, Sam Altman, Joe Lonsdale, the Winklevoss twins, Balaji Srinivasan and other top crypto VCs. The website openly states they are building a new nation and has images and video of its flag, while claiming to be “The Next America.” Activity, chatter, staffing and marshaling of resources points to this being the cornerstone of the Network State. Montenegro has been a suspected site due to heavy Network State activity, but Praxis has announced a series of “pop-up” events beginning with Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. Praxis appears to be the most well-funded, polished and explicitly fascist of the sites.

Praxis claims it will bring $100 billion in foreign direct investment, 400,000 new jobs, and $45 billion of venture capital investment. Though it does not have a determined location, Praxis has issued its “steel visas” to approximately 30,000 Praxis “citizens”.

An exposé in Mother Jones last year exposed the fascist nature of the Praxis project “under the leadership of a CEO [Dryden Brown] 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… Brown encouraged staff to read the work of a fascist Italian writer and occult researcher who worked with a branch of the Nazi SS… Brown and at least one other senior Praxis employee were interested in ‘this strange Nazi occultism’... former employees said they heard Brown use slurs targeting gay people and those with intellectual disabilities in the office. According to one of those ex-staffers, Brown frequently approvingly referenced The Bell Curve, which notoriously argues that Black people are intellectually inferior to whites.”  

Solano County, California 

In Solano County, the same money behind the Network State movement (PayPal Mafia, Andreessen Horowitz) is funding a major land grab secured through hostile legal tactics and secrecy to build a new “billionaire city”. Residents of Solano County are organizing and fighting back, along with local democratically elected politicians. In Solano as elsewhere in the Network State conspiracy, “California Forever” is operating in a duplicitous and aggressive manner to take land from local farmers using extortion and threats. Solano shows the expansion even within the United States is colonial, fascist and anti-democratic in nature. 

Goals of the Network State 

The biggest goal of the Network State is to gain diplomatic recognition as a sovereign nation. This is clearly stated in Network State materials, where the 7th and final step, referred to as “the main event” is: 

“Gain diplomatic recognition. A startup society with sufficient scale should eventually be able to negotiate for diplomatic recognition from at least one pre-existing government, and from there gradually increased sovereignty, slowly becoming a true network state… As the population and economy of a startup society grow comparable to that of a legacy state, with millions of citizens and billions in income, it should eventually be able to attain recognition from existing sovereigns — and ultimately the United Nations.” 

Sovereignty – the ability to escape the control, regulation and influence of the rest of the world, to form a technological superpower – is the primary goal and what they are working to achieve. They have cited Israel repeatedly as an inspiration for the Network State, stating “Herzl’s work is a major inspiration” and referring to the desired venture capital state as a “distributed Zion”. The Network State book finds a kindred spirit to the violent establishment of their own state, praising Israel’s achievements: “Their status as a nation state changed with time. The Jewish people were once a stateless nation, a diaspora group united by common ancestry and tradition without a land or government to call their own. Then, within living memory, they founded the state of Israel.”

The same money behind the Network State (Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund) is also building a massive arsenal of weapons startups, some of which are confirmed in use in the genocide in Gaza.

How Did This Happen? 

Many of the people creating the Network State were involved in sea-steading efforts, most famously purported by Peter Thiel. The goal of sea-steading was to establish a tech nation-state in international waters, allowing them to escape any regulation or oversight. Despite a ton of money being spent, sea-steading is still improbable for establishing a nation-state at any kind of scale due to engineering constraints. The same figures involved in tech sea-steading have transitioned into a land-based strategy, requiring them to obtain sovereign land from existing nation-states, via predatory and criminal means. This is a far more viable and dangerous tact. 

The key contributing factor is that tech accumulation of capital, built over decades, has allowed tech billionaires to amass the resources of a nation-state. Their drive for more and more capital, power and infrastructure, and the expansionist and imperial nature of capitalism, plus the desire to escape the constraining regulatory environment of America, makes this an almost inevitable rupture.