Written by: Techub News Compiled

In a fireside chat at the Network State Conference 2025, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin (V God) had an in-depth dialogue with Balaji Srinivasan, author of "Network States" and former partner at a16z. They reviewed the development of the Zuzalu community experiment over more than two years, discussed the implementation of the concept of "defensive decentralized acceleration" (d/acc), and looked ahead to the potential of the network state movement in connecting online consensus with offline physical spaces and reshaping culture and governance. This conversation is not just about technology; it is about how to build healthier, more resilient, and creative social units.

The Evolution of Zuzalu: From a Single Event to a Decentralized "Constellation"

Zuzalu was initially launched in 2023 in Montenegro as a two-month temporary community experiment, gathering hundreds of builders from fields such as crypto, longevity biotech, and public goods. Now, it has evolved into a decentralized "constellation" network. Vitalik Buterin (V God) emphasized in the conversation that they decided early on not to create a coordinating "Zuzalu Meta-Community" but to encourage participants to create their own community nodes.

As a result, we have seen a series of Zuzalu "offspring" emerging globally: from Zoo Georgia in Georgia, Zoo Thailand in Thailand, to Zoo Zurich in Switzerland, Crescent in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Forces in Chiang Mai. While these nodes share some core spirit of Zuzalu, each explores different directions.

Longevity biotech and public goods governance are two prominent common themes among them. Many nodes have a strong interest in extending human healthspan and biotech innovation. Simultaneously, many projects are exploring various forms of public goods, such as voting mechanisms, government governance models, digital passports, and registration systems. Vitalik Buterin (V God) believes this is a manifestation of the "d/acc" concept he advocates.

d/acc: The Philosophy of Defensive Decentralized Acceleration

d/acc, or "defensive decentralized acceleration," is a core concept that Vitalik Buterin (V God) has frequently mentioned in recent years. He explained that it refers to accelerating the development of technologies that possess characteristics of openness, open-source, and decentralization (including architecture and power design) and are dedicated to creating positive-sum outcomes. The core is "defense" rather than "offense," aiming to enhance social resilience and cohesion.

Vitalik Buterin (V God) places d/acc in the middle of a spectrum of ideas. At one end of the spectrum is the European-style "degrowth" concept, at the other is "Effective Accelerationism" (e/acc), while a third vertex emphasizes centralization, big government, and large corporations—a form of "national securityism." D/acc attempts to find a balance between safety, decentralization, and technological acceleration.

He used Ethereum as an example to illustrate the successful practice of the d/acc concept. As a blockchain network, Ethereum safeguards an economy worth hundreds of billions of dollars while maintaining a high level of security and stability. He particularly noted that the proportion of losses from hacking incidents in the DeFi (decentralized finance) sector relative to the total value locked (TVL) has dramatically dropped over the past five years—from a peak of about 5% to around 0.2% today. He believes this is due to the proliferation of smart contract audits, accumulated experience among developers, a broader understanding of best practices, and an increase in reusable components.

Balaji Srinivasan then extrapolated an interesting idea: perhaps a risk assessment function similar to the "Lindy Index" could be built based on a decade of historical smart contract data. Vitalik Buterin (V God) revealed that Justin Drake from the Ethereum community had proposed a similar concept, measuring the maturity and safety of a protocol or contract by calculating the integral of the logarithm of TVL over time as a "Lindy Index." The logic behind this is that the longer a protocol survives and the larger the assets it manages, the more real threats and attacks it has endured, which may lead to greater robustness.

Practices of Network States: From Legal Reforms to Community Culture

The conversation then shifted to the broader practices of the network state movement. Balaji Srinivasan asked which ideas have truly withstood the test of reality after more than two years of social experimentation.

Vitalik Buterin (V God) observed that some independent Zuzalu nodes seem to be finding sustainable "product-market fit." For example, Edge City has essentially achieved financial balance, and some emerging nodes are showing good development momentum. However, he candidly admitted that a long-standing issue is that many projects initially emphasized obtaining some form of "government autonomy," but this often proves difficult to achieve in the short term and has little value, leading many practitioners to temporarily set aside this goal.

Nevertheless, they have also seen some fruitful progress. Balaji Srinivasan mentioned the example of the "Prosper" community, which successfully promoted the establishment of a "mini-circle" jurisdiction focused on biotech. Even more notably is the story that followed: community member Patrick Friedmann used a therapy developed in that area and self-reported positive effects (note: the conversation emphasized this as a personal report, not a medical claim). This information even caught the attention and interaction of Jeff Bezos. Balaji believes that from promoting legal reforms, founding companies, developing therapies, to ultimately creating impact, although this is currently only a few cases, it provides valuable clues for the future.

Vitalik Buterin (V God) approached the potential value of network states from a completely different realm—immigration and visas. He pointed out that extensive economic research suggests that immigration restrictions are among the most severely stifling forms of government regulation of economic activity. The common opposing argument is distrust of outsiders. His solution is to shift government regulation from "individuals" to "groups". If a "network state" or a similar group can establish a good reputation for effectively screening and accommodating high-quality, low-risk contributors, then it would be pragmatic from the government's self-interest to allow members of that group to enter. This is far more efficient and fair than discriminatory screening based solely on nationality (a low-bandwidth signal).

Balaji Srinivasan agreed and added the differences between the digital world and the physical world: in the digital realm (such as Facebook, Reddit, or crypto platforms), a platform's governance capability can scale almost independently of the number of users, allowing for millions or even billions of users. However, in the physical world, scaling governance is much more challenging. He believes that the core of the network state movement is to explore the integration from online to offline, finding new models to more efficiently connect global talent and opportunities while respecting sovereignty and risk management.

Both noted that small countries tend to be more friendly to crypto and innovation. Vitalik Buterin (V God) analyzed that large countries believe they have the power to control the entire technology stack, while small countries are aware of their limitations and are therefore more willing to embrace open and decentralized technology stacks. This creates opportunities for cooperation between network states and small countries, where network states can bring talent and capital to small countries, forming positive-sum transactions.

Cultural Innovation: The Essence of Community and "Minimum Necessary Controversy"

Vitalik Buterin (V God) emphasized that the concept of network states is not only about governance and judicial innovation but also about cultural innovation. This is also key to responding to the question of whether network states are merely upscale co-working spaces or accelerators.

Balaji Srinivasan used two "one-sentence points" to differentiate community from co-working spaces:

• First, community is about "connectivity." In a true community (he calls it a "sharper society"), members form tight-knit networks through friendship and shared experiences; in a café or co-working space, people may be friendly, but they are still strangers to each other.
• Second, cultural innovation usually means you are doing something you believe is right, but that the outside world may find controversial or uninteresting. He termed this "minimum necessary controversy." A purely co-working space typically lacks this quality.

Vitalik Buterin (V God) wholeheartedly agreed and cited Bryan Johnson (known for pursuing the "Blueprint" longevity plan) as an example. Sometimes, promoting certain ideas (like deep health interventions) cannot rely solely on a single product but requires building a complete lifestyle and environment supporting that idea. This is why many Zuzalu nodes are attempting to deeply explore the field of d/acc technology, including cryptography, blockchain, and health tech.

He demonstrated an interesting device on-site: an "electronic pet for clean air" funded by them. This device connects to an air quality monitor (detecting CO2, PM2.5, etc.) and encourages people to pay attention to environmental health in a gamified way. This exemplifies the practice of the "decentralized FDA" concept—ensuring data is tamper-proof through encrypted sensors, establishing a more trustworthy monitoring and rating system, potentially reshaping regulation and information verification methods.

Future Vision: Embassies, Monasteries, and Offline Spaces

Looking to the future, Vitalik Buterin (V God) hopes to see more diverse community experiments. He categorized small nodes into two interesting models:

• "Embassies": Located in city centers, densely aggregating talent and technology from specific fields, actively interacting with the outside world and receiving personnel. For example, San Francisco's Frontier Towers, which gathers practitioners from Ethereum, biotech, AI, and others.
• "Monasteries": Relatively remote locations, focusing more on holistic lifestyles and deep practice, distancing themselves from the outside world. Although historically monasteries also engaged in productive activities, their inward characteristics make scaling more challenging.

Balaji Srinivasan believes that the Network School embodies characteristics of both, while a purely "monastery" may struggle to expand. They discussed the trade-off between community "accessibility" and "internal connectivity strength": the closer to the city center, the higher the accessibility, but the internal connections may be diluted by a massive external network; the more remote, the stronger the internal connections, but accessibility decreases.

Finally, the topic shifted to the importance of "offline" culture. Balaji Srinivasan mentioned that, at the Network School, they created completely offline office spaces, using pen and paper, and set up phone storage lockers, allowing people to truly focus and be present. He analogized: just as we can develop self-driving electric cars, we can also build completely walkable car-free spaces; we can advance AI and crypto technologies while also "subtracting" technology to create offline environments free from push notifications.

Vitalik Buterin (V God) expressed excitement about this and shared his "post-traumatic stress disorder" feelings towards ubiquitous push notifications. He believes it is crucial to change the default settings of tech products to make them more human-centered and respectful of users' attention. He looks forward to seeing more such cultural experiments and hopes that in the future, around ten community nodes will evolve into places he not only wants to visit but also to live in long-term.

This conversation clearly indicates that Vitalik Buterin (V God) and other crypto thinkers have already transcended mere blockchain technology and are delving into the core of social experiments, governance models, and cultural innovations, seeking to explore new paradigms of human collaboration that are more resilient and creative in this highly digital and tension-filled era.

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