What is
Interneta?
Interneta is a voluntary federation of internet city-states. The United States of Interneta. A constitution, a citizenry, a census, and a flag, for the people who live and build on the cloud.
The pitch in one line: Interneta is to network states what USDC is to the dollar. A transition technology. USDC didn't replace USD; it gave it a new substrate. Interneta is the federated meta-layer that lets nation-state citizens migrate to network-state citizenship without renouncing what they came from.
From America to Interneta. The values keep going.
Built on the work of Balaji Srinivasan.
In 2022, Balaji Srinivasan published The Network State. It is the book that named the movement. The free online edition lives at thenetworkstate.com. We recommend you start there.
Balaji's one-line definition: a network state is a highly aligned online community with a capacity for collective action that crowdfunds territory around the world and eventually gains diplomatic recognition from pre-existing states.
His seven-step path goes: found a startup society, organize it as a network union, build trust offline and a cryptoeconomy online, crowdfund physical nodes, connect them into a network archipelago, run an on-chain census, gain diplomatic recognition.
The Articles VIII through XIV of the Interneta Constitution adapt this seven-step path directly into constitutional law for our member states. We do not claim to have invented this. We claim to have federated it.
Empires move on cycles. We are late in one.
Ray Dalio's framework in Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order describes empires as moving through a Big Cycle on eight measurable axes: education, innovation, competitiveness, military, trade, output, financial center, reserve currency status. Empires rise when these climb together and decline when they peel apart.
America is exhibiting all five late-stage signs: rising debt to GDP, deepening internal political polarization, declining military reach relative to its rival, gradual erosion of reserve-currency dominance, and populist-authoritarian pull from both wings. This is not a death sentence. It is a window.
History suggests that when an old empire wobbles, the next substrate gets built before the old one collapses. Interneta is our bet on what that substrate looks like.
A timeline of what got us here.
- 1789The United States ratifies its ConstitutionThree million people on a coastal strip. A constitution drafted by ~55 founders in a single Philadelphia summer. The first widely successful opt-in nation-state.
- 1944Bretton Woods makes the dollar the global reserveAmerica becomes the issuer of the world's unit of account. The closest analogue to what stablecoins and BTC are doing now.
- 1969ARPANET sends its first packetAmerica builds the substrate Interneta will eventually run on. The internet begins.
- 2008Satoshi publishes the Bitcoin whitepaperMoney goes peer-to-peer, censorship-resistant. The first piece of the network-state stack falls into place.
- 2008The Seasteading Institute is foundedPatri Friedman and Peter Thiel propose floating cities in international waters. The first modern push to start a new country outside the legacy nation-state system.
- 2013Vitalik Buterin proposes EthereumProgrammable money. Smart contracts. The substrate for the on-chain treasury, the social contract, the constitution.
- 2017Próspera ZEDE framework signed in HondurasA legal framework for opt-in private cities. The first network-state-adjacent jurisdiction to gain real-world recognition from a sovereign nation-state.
- 2020COVID accelerates remote workHundreds of millions of knowledge workers untether from physical office. The cloud-first, land-last hypothesis becomes lived experience for an entire generation.
- 2022Balaji Srinivasan publishes The Network Statethenetworkstate.com. The book that names and operationalizes the movement. Cloud first, land last. Recruit, not conquer. The seven-step path.
- 2023Zuzalu, Vitalik's popup city in MontenegroTwo months in Tivat. Two hundred residents. Proof that an opt-in community can materialize, govern itself, and dissolve, all within a calendar quarter.
- 2024Network School opens in Forest City, MalaysiaBalaji's pop-up campus at ns.com. A three-month residency program for builders of network states. The most concrete bet yet on the thesis.
- 2024Edge Esmeralda, Vitalia, Cabin, Aleph, CrecimientoA wave of popup villages across California, Roatán, Texas, Buenos Aires. Each running its own One Commandment experiment.
- 2025Starbase incorporates as a Texas citySpaceX-built town in Boca Chica votes to incorporate. Proof that the opposite path (land-first, recognition-next) also works.
- 2026Interneta launchesThe federation layer over them all. The optimistic meta-layer for network states. From America to Interneta. The values keep going.
Where to read further.
- Balaji SrinivasanThe thesis. Read this first. Free online. The seven-step path that Articles VIII through XIV of our Constitution adapt directly.
- The Sovereign IndividualJames Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg1997 prediction of the post-nation-state world. Half wrong, half eerily prescient. Worth wrestling with.
- Principles for Dealing with the Changing World OrderRay DalioThe empire Big Cycle. Why we are at the inflection point. Eight measurable axes: education, innovation, competitiveness, military, trade, output, financial center, reserve currency.
- The Fourth TurningWilliam Strauss and Neil HoweGenerational cycles. We are in the climax. Network states are one of the things being born.
- SeasteadingJoe Quirk and Patri FriedmanThe water version of Balaji's land version. Both rhyme. Both are paths into the same place.
- Balaji SrinivasanThe condensed thesis. If you only have an hour, read this and watch a Balaji talk.