Nomad list is one of the first network states

Here's @balajis and my fireside talk from The Network State conference:

🇪🇺 eu/acc

• I made eu/acc to Make Europe Great Again (MEGA)

🏴‍☠️ Nomads .com (formerly Nomad List) is one of the first Network States:

• Started 10 years ago
• Tens of thousand of members who move around globally
• Tens of millions of visitors that are DNs
• Main physical hubs:
  -- Bali
  -- Thailand
  -- Mexico
  -- Austin & Miami
  -- Spain & Portugal

🌎 How big is the digital nomad network state?

• 9 years ago I predicted 1 billion digital nomads by 2035, everybody said i was crazy, then COVID happened and everyone went remote
• 1/3rd of working population works remotely or hybrid globally
• 1 billion people work remotely in 2024
• of that ~10-20% moves around like a digital nomad, so 100-200 million digital nomads now

🧠 Most digital nomads (DNs) are not broke backpackers:

• High income: average is $125,000/year
• 90% are university educated, 34% has a master's degree
• Great people for countries (or network states) to attract

💻 Jobs:

• Most men DNs work as software devs 34%
• Most women DNs work in marketing 16%

❤️ Dating:

• 66% of DNs are single-> hard to date and they need more IRL fixed communities
• 72% of women DNs are 🏳️‍🌈 Progressive
• 53% of men DNs are 🗽 non-Progressive
• Bit of a clash there!

DNs are already in one place physically:

• Most DNs are not hopping around, but stays for months: the average trip is 64 days
• Reason for moving is not they like to travel, but lack of visas to stay -> another thing countries and network states can solve (with visas)

🇵🇹 I made my own little network state in Portugal:

• I moved most of my internet friends to Portuguese beach towns
• We’re all living within 5 minutes from each other
• Our own techno-optimist village experiment
• Permanent pop up city

🏴‍☠️ @balajis added:

• While we can easily picture a physical world map, imagining a digital map is more difficult. This makes it easier to feel connected to people who are physically close, yet the internet allows for close relationships with those who are far away. Relationship and interest-based proximity are far more important than physical location or distance.

• How do you protect a network state? Physical states need guns and armies, but network states and digital property are protected by cryptography—an unbreachable border and encryption as the ultimate firewall.

• The power of a network state lies in its media, money, and agility. If the old world has China, the digital world has crypto.

• Bonus: You’ll soon be able to pay with crypto using @stripe, as promised by Pieter on his apps.

Notes by @paarugsethi + edited by me

Originally posted on X