Ep. 103: Antonio García Martínez on Crypto, Network States, and Building New Cities

About this episode

Antonio García Martínez discusses the implications of crypto and network states on society and the future of living.

Antonio Garcia Martinez is a writer, entrepreneur, and director at Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum L2. Before that he sold a startup to Twitter, worked on ads at Facebook, and wrote Chaos Monkeys , his memoir about the early ad-tech world. This session was recorded live in the Infinity Dome in Prospera. Antonio explains why crypto is not just a new financial system. It is a direct challenge to one of the oldest powers of the state: controlling money and deciding who owns what. If you can send USDC on Base to anyone in the room in less than a second for less than a cent, and no bank or government can stop it, the foundations of the current world start to shift. From there, we move into the friction between digital freedom and physical geography. Antonio, Niklas and Eric talk about Próspera as a real world network state, why San Francisco stays a magnet even when it fails on the basics, and which places have the energy to become new tech hubs. Miami, Dubai, Singapore, and the American West all come up as examples. They also look at the hard questions: how to build a business model for charter cities, how the US might allow Prospera-style zones through interstate compacts, and what needs…

People in this episode

Guest: Antonio García Martínez

Topics covered

• crypto
• network states
• digital freedom
• charter cities
• future of living
• technology hubs

Keywords

• crypto
• network states
• Próspera
• charter cities
• digital freedom
• technology hubs
• USDC
• Ethereum
• business model

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Base, Coinbase, Twitter, Facebook

Books & works: Chaos Monkeys

Places: Próspera, San Francisco, Miami, Dubai, Singapore, American West

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