Funding the Commons Forum Berlin

This roundtable discusses the intersection of the network state movement and Web3 communities to uncover, examine, and critique its neo-colonial character. While popup villages, edge cities, and local nodes are perceived as bottom-up initiatives by the Web3 community, their interlinkages with the network state movement evoke a critical perspective. Venture capital-backed network states not only claim territory from nation states in a neo-colonial fashion, they also seek legitimisation through subjecting ocean states to a discourse of exoticism and vulnerabilities. Bringing together scholars from the humanities, event organisers, and Web3 practitioners, this discussion aims to inform the audience with a critical and multifaceted view on the network state movement in and beyond Web3.