The Network State, Sponsored by Coinbase
The Network State will be built by giant, powerful, rich startups and tech companies.
Earlier this year, Coinbase announced it is funding Próspera, the Network State in Honduras.
Próspera shows the Network State in its element: colonizing, lying like dogs, abusive legal practices, eugenics projects, environmental destruction, community abuse, invading against the will and directive of a sovereign democracy and sovereign constitution.
Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase (which is funded by Andreessen Horowitz, of course), making the announcement here in January 2025:
So Coinbase has always been super Network State and in fact, Balaji Srinivasan was CTO there previously. This is all part of the same conspiracy. Everything inside of it is working on the same thing: The Network State.
Coinbase has made huge moves recently with the launch of Base, their new super-app, built on their blockchain. (If you’re interested in what is up with Base, I wrote that up here.) But for the purposes of this article, Coinbase is really maturing as a financial platform and creating a huge crypto boom which is allowing it to move faster than ever.
Acceleration!
Now, in the past few days we hear from Base’s new “head of global builders” (aka business development/community evangelism), Xen Baynham-Herd, about Coinbase’s plan to build a Network State.
This was picked up by the head executive for Base at Coinbase, one Jesse Pollak.
Notable, Xen Baynham-Herd has been like really, really into the Network State since 2022 when the book came out. And he’s from the UK.
Yikes
I always tremble to see "Sense of national consciousness," but here I especially hate the discussion of "country leads and ambassadors" to build network state territories.
The statement "together, we're building a new country": five alarm fire.
Diplomatic recognition a possibility? We’re gonna need more than 5 alarms.
The reality of the Network State: it is the center and organizing principle of a giant boom of technology companies and startups like Coinbase. We are talking about PUBLICLY TRADED COMPANIES, like Coinbase, which has a ~$100 billion market cap and growing fast — “That's enough to fund a pretty significant real estate footprint!” — making SERIOUS INVESTMENTS in creating physical territories - Network States — around the world.
And there are a lot more a16z/Founders Fund tech companies where that came from. Tech companies/startups are the instruments of tech fascism. And they will be using as many as they can to build the Network State. Each will have its role to play.
But as far as the major plays for land and real estate for the Network State, Coinbase will be right up there with Flow.
Flow, founded by ex-WeWork Founder/CEO, Adam Neumann -- funded by a16z — is building a global real estate arm for the Network State. Flow’s business model is to obtain buildings and residential portfolios around the world and set up managed communities… expertly managed by Flow, and micro-managed down from the smell of the facilities to furniture, design, amenities, activities, internal marketplaces, etc. (A rabbit hole for you, I wrote more about Flow here).
Coinbase brings a whole new level of financing to this, as well as ability to negotiate with host governments, as it is already talking to all of them to get Coinbase registered and piloted in many many many many countries. It has also threatened to move its HQ out of the US on numerous occasions, going on quite the world tour. Little need for that now as they have couped the government, but they definitely got the legwork in.
Coinbase, like many venture capital companies, is continuously interacting with nation-states on partnerships, sales deals, regulations and legislation, new offices, business registration, interfacing with police and intelligence agencies, etc. The venture capital mechanism is already deep in these countries with contacts and intelligence on the country. Finding the best places to set up shop will come more easily than people think.
And Coinbase was the #1 culprit of the crypto lobbying effort and fake political campaigning that helped deliver the election to Trump. So they know what to do about elections too.
Coinbase also has huge power and control in the crypto community. Their role in community building and management, setting and disseminating culture, orchestrating the memecoin circus, making all the crypto events and marketing happen, is important. The new Base super-app with integrated social and community features highlights that nicely.
TLDR:
This speaks to the, what shall we call it, the INDUSTRIALIZATION of the Network State. MAJOR companies, some publicly traded, with HUGE market caps, using THEIR people, their technology, their relationships, their lawyers, their bankers, their software engineers, their marketing teams and lobbying teams, their connections, their political clout, all together, to make the Network State a reality.
The Network State Will Be Done By Startups.
A lot of them.
There’s another thing going on here that’s pretty interesting. Crypto is continuously generating new millionaires and multi-millionaires, who are newly rich, may never have worked much in their lives, have spent years now on Twitter Spaces round the clock living eating breathing crypto.
Crypto is the consuming passion… of people who made their money on crypto.
Because they made their money outside of “Traditional finance”, they aren’t loyal to it or what backs it: nation-states. But they are loyal to the Network State. It will have all of their friends from the internet, just like they were promised.
Crypto = financial system of the Network State
In August 2024, Henley and Partners released a report stating: “There are now 172,300 individuals worldwide holding over USD 1 million in crypto assets — a 95% increase compared to [2023] — with the number of Bitcoin millionaires soaring by 111% to 85,400.”
And that was PRE ELECTION. That was LAST YEAR.
In that time, Bitcoin is up 70%. So far this year, we have at least 26,758 new Bitcoin millionaires (Bitcoin addresses holding $1 million or more added in H1, 2025). That’s just Bitcoin.
Regularly, people are becoming millionaires and multi-millionaires on all kinds of crypto products, yes including memecoins. And those numbers are going to just grow and grow and grow.
A Boom of New Money = Great for the Network State
Tech workers are becoming richer and richer themselves, and they are already used to living in an elaborate guinea pig cage designed for them by a venture capitalist.
Most won’t even blink as they are seamlessly moved into the Network State. It’ll be like going to the vet.
The crypto mechanism can easily turn the tech workers, millionaires, multi-millionaires it made — now retired young — and put them towards the Network State, as citizens, early customers, evangelists, residents, getting some of the fuckin money back, and for whatever skills they have.
New millionaires and multi-millionaires are perhaps interested in going into the Network State to start breeding for it. After all, the Network State will be incredibly friendly to new (rich) families. They need babies.
More to come on this but yeah, look out for Coinbase going into full gear very soon on developing the Network State.
Remember: The Network State is about giant technology companies and their owners driving a massive geopolitical agenda: a new, technological state.
They have incredible resources, money, teams, and corporate infrastructure to pull this off. And it will take every startup they have to do it. But they will.