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Tech entrepreneur, angel investor and author of The Network State, Balaji Srinivasan, says a proverbial “giant robot” of supportive governing bodies and crypto supporters is needed to contend with the “giant monster” of the US federal government. The former CTO of Coinbase also said he will provide an update on his ongoing $1 million bitcoin bet “soon,” noting that “the reason I did it was to draw attention to this crisis.”
Speaking remotely at the first in-person ETHGlobal Pragma Tokyo Summit on April 13, tech entrepreneur, author and bitcoin advocate Balaji Srinivasan emphasized to attendees that difficult economic and societal changes are coming, but he is also optimistic about the tools crypto and the larger community focused on “network states” already provide to weather the storm.
Asked by Bitcoin.com News what the next practical steps are on the road to setting up network states and what work is being done, Srinivasan emphasized that the fiat crisis will draw people to decentralization because of a “trust deficit in the world.” but noted that a certain degree of trust is still required for society to function at the primary level, elaborating:
Decentralization is coming and then we need re-centralisation, but consensual re-centralisation [of] the other side into these little clusters. I realize it’s thinking ahead, but we have to think ahead because these changes can come very quickly.
The author noted that he is working on a follow-up to his book The Network State, and is making videos to go along with it, because “a lot of the things that I thought would be coming in ten years may be coming in a few years.”
“I can fund, you know, multiple DAOs and network states and so on, but a lot of that is sort of happening in parallel. I’ve been happy to see that happen,” Srinivasan noted. “And the biggest thing about that is just building high-trust communities, as hard as that is, with physical meetings. Where people know each other and know each other personally. And that’s the seed of rebuilding things after that.”
Speaking about the draconian physical shutdowns of recent years, said to be medical by the mainstream media, the angel investor emphasized that “the network state is partly a recipe for a ‘new normal’.” Later in the question and answer session, he explained:
When we have digital lockdown, which is coming, and there are capital controls, wage controls, price controls, CBDCs being rolled out [to] try blocking the exits. It is actually easier in some ways to roll out than physical lockdown. Digital lockdown – the alternative to that… is freedom, is cryptocurrency, is bitcoin, and I think that’s what you’re building as well.
Emphasizing to the room, “What I think you should do is think about building high-trust communities with physical meetings where you can physically verify people,” he goes on to lay out a vision for the near future:
In this kind of post-fiat crisis world where AI has risen, where China has risen, where fiat has collapsed, where it’s a low-trust society, you have to cryptographically verify all sorts of things – the identity of someone on the other side, the fact that they actually have the money they say they have. Everything you do in crypto becomes much more valuable if you can survive.
Srinivasan said the shift will go from people thinking Web3 is “this stupid thing” in an adversarial environment to where it becomes an “absolutely necessary thing.”
Srinivasan addressed American politics repeatedly in his presentation and in the Q&A session after, that “the further you are physically, economically and socially away from Blue America, the better off you are.” He noted that many people are migrating to areas perceived as crypto-friendly and pro-freedom, such as Latin America and Republican states in the United States. Speaking to a summit attendee he noted:
“The closer you are to Blue America [Democratic Party-controlled regions] the more the level of state failure … I don’t think all states fail … I think the red states could turn out to be like Eastern Europe or the Baltics.” He continued:
What I think the next step is to not just think of it as just the state versus the network … Another way is the network working with smart people in the state, like Nayib Bukele, like Dubai … red states and purple states [in the U.S.].
“Find jurisdictions like El Salvador. Find jurisdictions like Palau. Find places where the government actually supports the network. Make deals with them … And then you have government support and, you know, a government in your corner.” The author brought up the Hollywood film Pacific Rim, in which he noted that humans were unable to fight a massive monster that had emerged from the sea:
So right now this giant monster has risen from the sea and it’s the US federal government, and it’s attacking all the crypto banks, it’s attacking all the tech banks… it’s attacking every single part of the future and it’s just going all out on us.
He continued: “Against the government you cannot fight as an individual or even as a corporation. To beat this giant monster you need a giant robot, a good robot of your own. You need your own government … you need the good states which fights against the bad states … now it is sovereign against sovereign.”
While many proponents of bitcoin and crypto freedom are of the opinion that there are no such things as “good states,” traditionally understood, as even taxation is a form of theft, Srinivasan nevertheless says that the average individual needs “HP” and the government’s power. – team’s action.
Concluding his appearance at Pragma Tokyo, explaining his current $1 million bitcoin bet, the tech entrepreneur explained to the summit: “I will also give an update on the bet soon… I think it will be satisfactory for everyone, of course. The reason I did it was to draw attention to this crisis.”
What are your thoughts on Balaji Srinivasan’s visions of network states and the current financial crisis and its implications for crypto? Let us know in the comments section below.
Image credit: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Balaji Srinivasan, Graham Smith
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