The conventional nation-state framework, established around 380 years ago, is under threat, as corporations and competing centralized entities gain influence, according to Jarrad Hope, co-founder of Logos and author of Farewell to Westphalia: Crypto Sovereignty and Post-Nation-State Governance.

Hope emphasized, “Modern nation-states are nearly 380 years old, predating even the scientific discovery of oxygen and gravity.” He believes that the internet and blockchain offer new tools for organizing society that empower people to transcend geographic boundaries.

These tools encompass inflation-resistant decentralized currencies, immutable ledgers for unalterable records, smart contract platforms for automated agreements, privacy-centric protocols, and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) for community governance. Hope elaborated:

“Traditional governance asks you to trust unelected bureaucrats, unfamiliar people, and opaque processes. Blockchain-enabled communities, by contrast, lean on transparent infrastructure that narrows the domain of trust.”
Translation: La gobernanza tradicional te pide que confíes en burócratas no elegidos, personas desconocidas y procesos opacos. Las comunidades habilitadas por blockchain, en cambio, se basan en una infraestructura transparente que reduce el dominio de la confianza.

He pointed out that established nation-states and corporations pose significant challenges to network states, citing the UK Online Safety Act as an example of centralized control. The rise of network states resonates within the crypto community, which champions decentralization and privacy, aligned with the cypherpunk ethos crucial to cryptocurrencies.

Efforts to Create Network States

Several initiatives have sought to establish network states or micronations asserting independence, such as Bitnation in 2014, aiming to forge a borderless, blockchain-centric state. However, these attempts have yet to produce a fully autonomous network state resembling a sovereign entity in cyberspace.

Experts like Hope assert that traditional states will leverage regulations, legal action, or even military force to suppress emerging network states as they gain traction. This resistance is expected to be a persistent obstacle in the evolution of alternate organizational models in the crypto domain.

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