According to Jarrad Hope, author of the book “Farewell to Westphalia: Crypto Sovereignty and Post-Nation-State Governance” and co-founder of Logos, a project developing blockchain tools and decentralized digital infrastructure for network states, sovereign communities existing in cyberspace, the nation-state model is fading and losing its importance.
“Modern nation states are almost 380 years old, so they predate even the scientific discovery of oxygen and gravity,” Hope told Cointelegraph, adding that the Internet and blockchain offer modern tools for organizing society that allow people to build in different geographic locations.
These tools include inflation-resistant decentralized digital currencies, immutable ledgers enabling tamper-free records, sharp contract platforms for automated financial and legal contracts, privacy-preserving protocols, and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) for lucid community governance. Hope added:
“Traditional governance requires the trust of unelected bureaucrats, unknown people, and opaque processes. Blockchain communities, on the other hand, rely on transparent infrastructure that narrows the scope of trust.”
He also said the biggest obstacle facing networking nations is resistance from nation states and established institutions, including multinational corporations, and pointed to the UK’s Internet Safety Act as an example of centralized control over digital infrastructure.
The ponderous emergence of network states is a popular topic in the crypto community, built on the core ideals of decentralization, transparency, equal access, immutability, and the right to privacy, central to the cypherpunk ethos that underlies cryptocurrencies.
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They are trying to create network states, but they need more than just blockchain to stay in business
There have been several attempts to establish a network state or create micronations declaring independence, including the Bitnation project in 2014, which aimed to create a borderless, blockchain-based state.
However, none of these efforts have resulted in an effective and autonomous network state that functions as a sovereign nation in cyberspace.
Hope, other blockchain experts and crypto industry executives tell Cointelegraph that established nation states will try to weaken emerging network states as they develop.
These entrenched states could exploit regulation, litigation or military force to prevent growing competition from an alternative organizational model, industry officials say.
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