🌍 Blockchain Nation-Building: Balaji’s Network School Turns Malaysia’s Forest City Into a Crypto Lab

From empty skyscrapers to startup societies — ex-Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan is testing whether communities built on code and crypto can evolve into full-fledged “network states.”

⚡ Quick Hits

• 🏙 Location: Forest City, Malaysia — a near-empty mega-project now a crypto classroom
• 💵 Tuition: 1,500/month for housing + education
• 👩‍💻 Students: 400, blending coding with crypto-governance theory
• 📖 Curriculum: Mornings = building projects, Afternoons = debating DAOs & sovereignty
• 🏋️ Culture: Silicon Valley vibes — gyms, protein diets, longevity hacks
• 🌐 Vision: decentralized “network states” gaining recognition alongside nations

🏗️ Forest City as a Living Lab

Originally designed for millions, Forest City is mostly empty skyscrapers and ghost malls. But with Singapore’s airport just across the border, tax-free perks, and family office incentives, it’s now Balaji’s sandbox for crypto-governed societies.

Nearly 400 students live and work here, paying 1,500 per month for shared housing and a radical education:

• Morning → build crypto projects
• Afternoon → debate governance models, DAOs, digital sovereignty

The vibe: half coding bootcamp, half philosophical think tank. Add gyms, nootropics, and protein-heavy diets — and you’ve got a crypto-college version of Silicon Valley meets Burning Man.

🧠 From Silicon Valley VC to “Network State” Architect

Balaji’s 2013 Y Combinator talk framed Silicon Valley’s “ultimate exit” from U.S. politics. By 2022, his book The Network State laid out the blueprint:

• Online communities unite around shared values + crypto treasuries
• They operate across multiple geographies
• Eventually, they seek recognition as new digital-first nations

Network School is the live-action test of that theory — swapping borders for blockchains, and nationality for ideology.

🔥 Startup Societies or Just a Crypto Retreat?

Critics dismiss the project as a luxury tech commune with philosophical cosplay. Supporters say it’s political RD for the 21st century — the kind of sandbox that could teach us how future societies self-organize outside legacy state control.

Even if it fails, it’s a rare attempt at practical alternatives to governance. If it works? We’re talking about a blueprint for digital nations backed by crypto and recognized by states.

🚨 Why It Matters

• For crypto: Shows how blockchains could evolve beyond finance into politics and governance.
• For students: Blends coding skills with radical civics — training the next gen of crypto-native citizens.
• For governments: Raises the question: what happens when citizenship is opt-in, mobile, and tokenized?
• For the world: Malaysia’s Forest City might be the first true test bed for nation-building without borders.

✍️ TL;DR

Balaji Srinivasan’s Network School in Malaysia’s near-empty Forest City has enrolled 400 students paying 1,500/month to live, code, and debate blockchain governance. It’s part bootcamp, part political experiment — testing whether crypto + ideology can power decentralized “network states.” Love it or hate it, the outcomes could shape how future societies organize in a post-nation world.