Zuzalu is Dead. Long Live Zuzalu! - Metamorphosis Commenced v3

Reports from Chiang Mai’s Pop-up City Archipelago.

Good Morning from Chiang Mai, Thailand - the center of the Pop-up City world! I arrived here two weeks ago, and the Zuzalu Pop-up City Archipelago is truly in full display around the city.

As mentioned in previous articles, which you can find here and here, Chiang Mai, between October and early November, is hosting more Zuzalu Ecosystem Pop-up Cities than anywhere else in our brief history. What started off as only a few Pop-ups has now evolved into a full out Pop-up gathering with 11 official pop-up cities happening here at the same time. Since there’s never been a non-coordinated mass gathering of this many web3+ pop-up city people, in this article I will focus on some major questions and roadblocks that may make the emergence of a Network State hard. The objective of this article is to spark cross-pop-up city coordination, and create a common layer to monetize pop-up cities effectively, measure their economic activity and impact, and allow for broader access. To do so, the article also touched upon Zuzalu’s identity and the questions that remain unanswered in the whole movement.

So, first things first, what is Zuzalu and what are Pop-up Cities?

Zuzalu was the first and arguably most impactful Pop-up City of its kind in history. Starting in March 2023, and lasting for roughly 2 months, domain experts from all around the world gathered in Montenegro to cross-pollinate ideas and industries. Vitalik Buterin, the founder of both Ethereum and Zuzalu, had a big part in organizing the pop-up city and inviting people who were stalwarts in fields that he had a special interest in. Cryptographers, AI engineers, longevity scientists, and many more, made Montenegro their home for this period, allowing for the blossoming of an ecosystem and the definition of what a Zuzalu Pop-up City should be - a month(s) long gathering, in a physical space, that brings like-minded people together to focus on a coordinated target. For Zuzalu, the target, at least in part, was the early formation of a Network State movement.

The Network States, as defined by Balaji Srinivasan, is “a highly aligned online community with a capacity for collective action that crowdfunds territory around the world and eventually gains diplomatic recognition from existing states.” In brief, a Network State allows for new societies to emerge that are tied to people’s interest, more so than their geographical location and their ethnic or national identities. It is a society of the willing, a self-selecting group of people who want to live with each other, and have aligned social, political and, often, economic interests.

The Network State is, in short, the Internet’s political and social arm.

The emergence of the Network State, therefore, comes at a very particular time. A time where the satisfaction with existing Nation States is at an all-time low, and social dysphoria is at full display. The likelihood that the Network State will blossom on the remains of once-revered National institutions is, frankly, quite high. Such a pivotal shift in the minds, interests and goals of people must be accompanied by a clear-cut distinction of value. The Network State must be a better alternative, and by a country mile. It must support the formation of wealth and families, it must increase the happiness and livelihood of its people, and it should do so for millions of people at the same time.

So… do Zuzalu-inspired Pop-up Cities, the early incarnation of the Network State, achieve this at present?

No, not even close.

Zuzalu’s Big Questions:

What is Zuzalu? Who decides who is and isn't a Zuzalian? How are these decisions made, and how are the decision makers selected, vetted and held accountable?

In every turn that I, or others, try to create cross-pop-up city coordination under the Zuzalu brand, the same visceral reactions emerge. “Why is X person in this group? They are not aligned with the Zuzalu principles!”.

This skepticism is somewhat well-warranted. There is a reason why Zuzalu “Decentralized”, and it's primarily due to having too many parties vying for their own benefit within this super exciting new ecosystem. As such, having a clear memo on what is Zuzalu and what should fall within the principles of Zuzalu is mighty important.

Yet, “official” Zuzalu principles don't exist…

I am, personally, still unsure of what “Zuzalu Principles” are, and that is perhaps because I wasn’t at Zuzalu. But even when others, who were there, tell me, consensus is very hard to attain on these principles.

When someone pushes to create a Zuzalu guiding document, the reaction is clearly and constantly negative. There is a palpable air of distrust within this community, which, again, makes sense when you consider that most are trying to build robust, trustless systems that cannot be hijacked by anyone. Zuzalu, as of now, just simply isn’t able to achieve this robust nature. This is also, in my mind, why the movement was rapidly decentralized.

But my fear is that we will never get a clear Zuzalu “Manifesto”, something that is desperately needed; as always, in my opinion.

I also fear that Zuzalu is, pragmatically, dead, and its children have taken over as part of this new archipelago; an archipelago of smaller, competing actors, which, although not infallible, have at least created smaller conclaves that do trust each other and who might be able to produce a list of principles that reach their own little consensus, providing clarity and potential for coordination.

But this begs the question - are these smaller Pop-up Cities able to effectively formulate the Network State?

Pop-up Cities, at least the ones in Zuzalu’s ecosystem, do not have the rails, position and capabilities to realize the massiveness of the Network State. Zuzalu, as a singular unit with tremendous excitement, did. The segmentation of a community is a tricky game to play, and may weaken the movement as a whole. Although it does produce variety and additional robustness, it drains the community into many different niches that, on their own, will likely fail to produce a legitimate Network State. Are Longevity and Zero Knowledge technology, on their own, beacons for a Society’s foundation? I am not certain. Are gatherings of primarily young, tech-native men enough to build a Society? Again, I remain skeptical. But everything seems to be moving in the right direction.

Ultimately, we must recognize that at present Pop-up Cities are exclusionary by default. A family, for example, cannot join this movement at present regardless of how close their principles are to the Zuzalu movement. Older generations, with their wealth of knowledge and experience, as well as others that may need specialized medical care, cannot join the movement. Importantly, builders in Africa, Latin America or Asia, who can provide more value to this movement than any other demographic, may not be able to join these movements due to both passport and budget limitations.

These limitations, therefore, exclude billions of people; the same billions of people that “failing” Nation States are currently holding down.

The last point, especially, is extremely important to me. I cannot envision the emergence of the Network State that isn’t built to target Africa, LatAm and Asia instead of Western Techno-nomads. You cannot convince me that these new Digital Statehoods will not provide more value to the world’s “underprivileged” instead of people who already have access to the world’s most sophisticated economies, societies and social institutions. Who needs the Network State more?

Whether because of passport limitations, work limitations or familiar responsibilities, Pop-up Cities, as of right now, are not built to scale. The billions of people that will benefit from Network States are simply not the target audience of Pop-up Cities; at least not yet.

Finally, Pop-Up Cities today are also very expensive. At present, these Pop-up Cities are practically “luxury good” gatherings targeting the top 1% of people in history. Most Pop-up City attendees are people who work remotely, have capital and time to travel the world, and, importantly, have the passport access and freedoms to do so. Some of us may take this for granted, but such freedoms have never been as wide-spread as today.

This is because current Pop-up Cities are missing key infrastructural tools, tested business models, and data analysis. Let’s fix this.

Pop-up Cities - a Data Driven Approach:

In every modern society, there are a number of key metrics that measure the prosperity and quality of life of the people living under these states. Examples of this are GDP per capita, the Gini Coefficient, the Social Progress Index, the Freedom of the World Index, the Human Development Index and many, many more.

As of right now, these metrics simply don't exist in the Zuzalu ecosystem. Besides some of my own (very biased) work on rating these pop-up cities, there is no one producing a concrete analysis and comparison of these gatherings as of right now. This ought to change, and in doing so, needs to set the economic performance rails that already exist in today’s world.

In the past, under my own rating system, I have divided the Pop-up City criteria into four subsections. These are:

• Coliving & Coworking
• Curation of Citizens
• Co-created, co-owned Agenda
• Power and Alignment of Mission

I then ranked each category out of 10, added these scores up and provided a personalized rating for each Pop-up City that I had attended to date. But an N=1 study on these Pop-up Cities is not rigorous enough, it limits legitimate comparisons and it does not allow for other people to provide feedback.

As such, the first step, in my mind, would be to create a public, permissioned form, perhaps using ZuPass, to gather community feedback on each of the Pop-up Cities that emerge. Let people have a method to speak their minds freely. Applying ZK tech here makes a lot of sense, and the questionnaire could look something like this: —

Pop-up City Attendee Questionnaire - X Pop-Up City:

1. (Optional) What is your name or preferred identifier?
2. Sign in with ZuPass - Verify Attendance Credentials (This helps ensure that they attended the Pop-up City)

Coliving and Coworking:

3. How would you rate your overall Pop-up City Experience? (1-10, 10 being the highest score)
4. Did the Pop-Up City provide you with a sufficiently valuable coworking experience? (1-10)
5. Did the Pop-Up City provide you with a sufficiently valuable coworking experience? (1-10, N/A)
6. What were the biggest limitations on Coworking and Co-Living? (Short response submission)

Curation of Citizens:

7. Did you have any pre-stated professional goals for joining the Pop-up City? (Short response submission)
8. Did you make any important professional connections in this Pop-up City? (Yes/No/Maybe, Short Response)
9. Did you make any new friends in the Pop-up City? (Yes/No/Maybe, Short Response)
10. Overall, how would you rate your experience for professional social progression within the Pop-up City? (1-10, N/A)
11. Overall, how would you rate your experience for social progression within the Pop-up City? (1-10, N/A)
12. Any additional feedback on the curation of Pop-up Citizens? (Short response submission)

Co-Created Agenda:

13. Did you have any concrete agenda items, themes and topics that you cared to explore the most within the Pop-up City? (Short response submission)
14. How would you rank the overall agenda of the Pop-up City? (1-10, N/A)
15. How would you rank the punctuality and flow of the Pop-up City agenda? (1-10, N/A)
16. How would you rank the openness of the Pop-up City agenda? (1-10, N/A)
17. Any additional feedback on the agenda creation process of the Pop-up City? (Short response submission)

Power and Alignment of Mission:

18. Did you have a mission item that resonated with you the most? (Short response submission)
19. How would you rank the mission of the Pop-up City in terms of clarity? Was it sufficiently clear and narrow? (1-10, N/A)
20. How would you rank the power of the Pop-up City’s mission? (1-10, N/A)
21. How would you rank the Pop-up City in terms of delivering on its mission? Did they achieve any real impact on their selected cause? (1-10, N/A)

Additional Feedback:

22. How likely are you to recommend this Pop-up City to others - namely friends and loved ones? (1-10, N/A)
23. How likely are you to recommend his Pop-up City to others 0 namely professional connections and colleagues? (1-10, N/A)
24. With the knowledge and experience collected by now, would you join this Pop-up City again if you had the chance? (Yes/No)
25. Will you join this Pop-up City again in its next iteration? (Yes/No)
26. Please provide any additional thoughts or feedback to the Pop-up City Organizers. (Short response form)

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The above questionnaire structure is a good start, but feedback from the community is more than welcome. This form is only the beginning of a Cross-Pop-up City collaboration effort, and it would be incomplete without taking into account the thoughts of the Pop-up City organizers too.

As such, a separate questionnaire should exist for Pop-up City organizers. This questionnaire should not be public. To that extent, this questionnaire should also be eponymous instead of pseudonymous. Self-reflexion is of huge importance, as well as a tool to gather the biggest issues and needs that these Pop-up City organizers seek support with.

The organizer questionnaire could look something like this:

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Pop-up City Organizer Questionnaire - X Pop-Up City:

1. What is your name or preferred identifier? What is your Pop-up City

   
   

2. How would you rate your overall Pop-up City Experience? Do you believe that you delivered on your vision and offering? (1-5, 5 being the highest score)

3. What were the highlights of the Pop-up City as an organizer? (List Items - Rank each 1-5, 5 being best)

4. What were the lowlights of the Pop-up City as an organizer? (List Items - Rank each 1-5, 5 being worst)

5. How many attendees come to your Pop-up City? (Multiple Choice, Categories)

6. What were your Pop-up City’s main themes? (Short form response, List items, Prioritize by importance)

7. Please submit your website, gitcoin grant round, or any other on-line content that you want to share in the public. (Short form responses)

8. Are you organizing the same Pop-up City next year? Is it at the same location? (Multiple Choice, Categories)

Coliving and Coworking:

9. How would you rate the overall coworking offering to your citizens? (1-5, 5 being the highest score)
10. How would you rate the overall coliving offering to your citizens? (1-5, 5 being the highest score)
11. Did you face any obstacles with organizing coworking? (Short form response, List items, Rank each 1-5, 5 being the largest obstacle)
12. Did you face any obstacles with organizing coliving offerings? (Short form response, List items, Rank each 1-5, 5 being the largest obstacle)

Curation of Citizens:

13. How would you rate the overall alignment and level of attendees? (1-5, 5 being the highest score)
14. Are there sections of society that were underrepresented within your pop-up city? (Yes/No) If
15. yes, then why? (Short form response)
16. If no, then how did you attain the perfect balance (Short form response)

Co-Created Agenda:

17. Did the agenda of your Pop-up completely cover the topics you had in mind? (Yes/No, List Items Covered, Rank each 1-5, 5 being most effectively covered)
18. Did your agenda tools work as imagined? (Yes/No, list issues, rank each on severity, 1-5, 5 being most severe)
19. Did the attendees use the agenda tool as expected (Yes/No, short form response (optional))

Power and Alignment of Mission:

20. Did you deliver on your mission and objectives (Yes/No, List Items and rank each 1-5, 5 being highest success)
21. What were the highlights of your mission-focused activities? (List Items - Rank each 1-5, 5 being best)
22. What were the lowlights of your mission-focused activities? (List Items - Rank each 1-5, 5 being worst)

Additional Feedback:

23. Additional comments and thoughts? (Long form response item)

—

The above questionnaires are only the first few baby-steps for the data collection needs of Pop-up Cities. There is still a tremendous need to collect shared databases of key data that can indicate the growth of the movement, and the value that it provides to its citizens. I, personally, believe that demographic information from attendees is an important addition to the above questionnaires. Such information will help us understand which parts of society we’ve yet to attract and build upon. But such information is delicate, and cryptographic tools for attaining them are surely needed.

In addition to the above, and this is a conundrum that I am unsure how to solve as of right now, we need to collect key society performance data and ratios. For example, the Network State should increase the wealth and prosperity of its members. Can this be tracked? In traditional economics this can be done, in part, by tracking GDP per capita per year and its delta year-on-year. In addition, the GDP/GNP can help us calculate the shared purchasing power and economic activity of the community; information that will be crucial to attracting support from friendly governments.

But can such information be collected for Zuzalians? Highly unlikely. Such delicate information is already virtually impossible to collect in the crypto-native space. But perhaps there are alternatives that can stand in place of these traditional metrics? I don’t know, but I seek the community's support to think these through and produce desperately needed analysis.

With support, the below metrics can be gradually created:

1. Economic Metrics:

Gross Domestic Product (GDP):

Measures the total economic output of a country, either in nominal terms or adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP). This helps us highlight our shared economic power.

GDP Per Capita:

GDP divided by the population, providing insight into the average income and living standards. GDP Per Capita year-over-year helps us measure progression in economic development.

2. Quality of Life Metrics:

Social Progress Index (SPI):

Measures social and environmental outcomes directly, such as basic human needs, foundations of well-being, and opportunities for people to improve their lives.

World Happiness Report:

Measures happiness based on factors like GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and perceptions of corruption.

Perhaps there are more metrics that can replace or add to the above list. If anyone has any suggestions on this, please contact me directly and let’s discuss!

With the above information we can try to create a more holistic picture of the movement. This will also help us highlight legitimate community needs where our limited funds can be funneled to best optimize the chances of our impact. Perhaps on this note, it makes sense to discuss what is and what isn’t part of the Zuzalu ecosystem. To do so, creating a “Manifesto” of sorts can help immensely. However, as mentioned above, such efforts have been rebuked repeatedly, and since there shall likely never be an official “Manifesto”, I list my own proposed set of principles and definitions for our collective and our cross-coordination efforts, a document which anyone can read, comment and hate on freely.

—

Xenofon’s Pop-up City Manifesto:

Over the last year, one thing became clear to me - the rapid decentralization of Zuzalu has crammed many initiatives, all with merit, in one very short year. Even though I really want to be at every Pop-up City in the ecosystem, I simply can’t. The palpable fragmentation, which is still present, has created many smaller communities, all similar and different to each other. Although many of these Pop-up movements may merge or fail, it’s almost certain that it will continue to become harder and harder to properly define Zuzalu in the years to come.

As such, in this mini-Manifesto I seek to provide an overall set of Principles that I believe are representative by everyone in the community; at least to some degree. I also try to define what Zuzalu is. A secondary goal of this list of principles is to produce the operational and social structures that will allow for cross-pop-up city coordination in the future - although that will need time and more data.

Let’s start from shared principles and values:

A few overarching values are present in every pop-up city that I’ve attended and participated in. These values, although brief, produce the principles and determine the route that this ecosystem will take in the future.

These core four values are:

1. Prosperity focused:

   
   

Longevity, a balanced but productive lifestyle, and a communal safety net to ensure that its members live long and prosper is a goal of every pop-up in the Zuzalu ecosystem. Understanding that the only way to outcompete existing social structures is by focusing on prosperity, is a key value of Zuzalu.

2. Techno-Optimistic:

   
   

Let's ensure that the future of tech is built to serve humanity. This entails building applications that can produce tremendous value without sacrificing data sovereignty, privacy and natural rights. Testing these applications within Pop-up Cities is a great way to establish better technologies and early userbases.

3. Capture-proof:

No single entity should be able to control or heavily impact the movement. This movement is not for corporations or states. It's for us - the people.

In the same spirit, the movement is both digital and physical, providing flexibility and robustness, and grassroots, where agendas and themes are maneuvered by the citizens of each pop-up.

4. Trans-national and Global:

Zuzalians can be from every part of the globe, as long as they aspire to the principles and values shared by other Zuzalians. To this end, the Pop-up City ecosystems should spread across the globe in the years to come.

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These are, for me, 4 core values that determine what is and isn’t part of the Zuzalu ecosystem. Feedback is welcome on all of this, but establishing the values is a precursor to establishing principles for all the Network States that may emerge from the Zuzalu movement.

As such, below are the set of early core principles that I have designated.

List of Principles:

1. Natural Rights – Pop-up Citizens have an inalienable right to the liberties already entrenched by existing democratic institutions, such as speech, life, liberty, property and more. Some things don’t need fixing.

   
   

2. Exitarian and Permissionless - Join if you want, leave when you want. Vote with your feet. Never become a cult.

3. Decentralization and Robustness - build flawless systems or iteration mechanisms to improve them constantly. A policy and institutional flywheels in practice.

4. Rule of Law - All pop-up citizens and organizers are to be subject to the same rules of engagement, protecting themselves and others by creating effective dispute resolution mechanisms, fairness and rationalism in discourse.

5. Transparent - Mechanisms of the society should be visible by all stakeholders, while ensuring that these Pop-up Societies cannot be co-opted by competing third parties, like unfriendly organizations of all sizes and backgrounds.

6. Zero Knowledge in Practice - Build institutions where citizens can interact, criticize and alter foundations without giving up personal information.

7. Economic Freedom and Property Rights – The right to own, use, and trade property freely. Pop-up citizens have the right to their own Intellectual Property.

8. Decentralized and Segmented - Allow communal forking and sub-niching to take place. Instigate operational flexibilities to allow for micro-communities to be built within each Pop-up and Network Society.

With these values and principles defined, now let’s focus on the biggest issue - what is Zuzalu and how can one define it?

This question is exceptionally tricky. One could say that “Zuzalu was a one-time Pop-up City which has ceased to exist”. As of right now this definition would not be too far from reality, but it would also exclude a number of crucial considerations from the definition. It does not take into account the Pop-up City ecosystem that has blossomed from Zuzalu, which many participants consider to be part of Zuzalu, and it wouldn’t touch upon the impact and principles that were set out in Montenegro.

A second potential definition is that Zuzalu “was the starting point for the emergence of the Network State”. But this would limit the definition to a digital-first community with niche shared interests. This definition would not capture the fact that Zuzalu was a multidisciplinary gathering of people who, often, met for the first time in person in Montenegro. There is an explicit connection between Zuzalu and the Network State movement, but this Venn diagram isn’t a single circle.

Lastly, one can define Zuzalu as “a movement of like-minded people who seek to research and expand the application of emerging decentralized, private, longevity and other prosperity focused technologies, which can allow them to create enclaves where these people can live with each other.” But this definition would not capture the ever-changing focus of this movement to other technologies and facets of society, like art, music, education and family building. This definition would also exclude the ever-changing nature of the people involved in this movement.

As such, my current best version of Zuzalu’s definition, one that will likely change tremendously in years to come, is:

“Zuzalu are a people who aspire to use technology to best improve their own lives, and in extent, the lives of others. It is a group of ever changing people that seek to protect their freedom, culture and prosperity from the existing limitations of social structures.”

—

Regardless of the hurdles, gaps and issues highlighted in some of the sections of this report, I would be remiss if I didn’t say that Chaing Mai, today, is a very impressive turnout for a movement that was fully centralized this time last year. Since ZuConnect, a single event that took place for only the two weeks right before last year’s Devcon, I have had the pleasure to travel the world for nearly every single month of the year, seeing my friends around the world and embracing the beauty and learning that traveling the world can provide to you.

Today, as we speak, there are eleven Pop-up Cities taking place in the same city, at the same time, with two more planned to happen after DevCon later in November. What a turn up! For a few, the plethora of options produces a more robust ecosystem than a singular Zuzalu movement, and as such, I will list and share a few insights for each of the Pop-up Cities taking place right now in Chiang Mai.

Chiang Mai Pop-up Cities - Oct./Nov. 2024:

MegaZu:

Website: https://www.megazu.fun/

Social Layer Link: https://app.sola.day/event/megazu?tab=coming

Areas of Focus:

• Builders - Shipping Code.

Edge City Lanna:

Website: https://www.edgecity.live/lanna

Social Layer Link: https://app.sola.day/event/edgecitylanna?tab=coming

Areas of Focus:

• Human Organization; Artificial Intelligence; Real World Crypto; Health, longevity and bio Hard Tech.

MuChiangMai (Again):

Website: https://the-mu.xyz/

Social Layer Link: https://app.sola.day/event/themu?tab=coming

Areas of Focus:

• ZK Crypto; Cross Pop-up City Coordination; Builder and Pop-up City Support.

ShanghaiWoo:

Website: https://www.shanhaiwoo.com/

Social Layer Link: https://app.sola.day/event/woochiangmai?tab=coming

Areas of Focus:

• Artificial Intelligence; Blockchain Art and Creator Economy; Organization, Collaboration and Coordination; Local Culture and Digital Nomads; Wellness and Sustainability.

Lovepunks:

Website: https://www.lovepunks.xyz/

Social Layer Link: https://app.sola.day/event/lovepunkschiangmai?tab=coming

Areas of Focus:

• Radical Collaboration; Human Connection; Decentralization and Inclusivity; Stewardship; Cultural Innovation; Creator Economy & Music/Entertainment Tech.

H.E.R. DAO:

Website: https://www.her-dao.xyz/tech-city

Social Layer Link: https://app.sola.day/event/herdao?tab=coming

Areas of Focus:

• Women in Web3

Auroraverse:

Website: https://www.auraverse.life/

Social Layer Link: https://app.sola.day/event/auraverse?tab=coming

Areas of Focus:

• Artificial Intelligence; Biohacking; Longevity; Decentralized Science (DeSci).

Invisible Garden:

Website: https://invisible.garden/

Social Layer Link: https://app.sola.day/event/invisiblegarden?tab=coming

Areas of Focus:

• Ethereum, Zero Knowledge, Pop-up City Culture.

Funding the Commons:

Website: https://www.fundingthecommons.io/

Social Layer Link: https://app.sola.day/event/ftccnx?tab=coming

Areas of Focus:

• Public/Common Goods Development; Public Goods Funding; Regenerative Digital Infrastructure.

UnCollege:

Website: https://digicnx.network/cosmolocal-chiang-mai-upcoming-plans-and-events-recap/

Social Layer Link: https://app.sola.day/event/dhuncollege?tab=coming

Areas of Focus:

• Cosmolocalism; Climate; AI; Art; Regeneration.

Web3 Village:

Website: https://www.web3villages.com/

Social Layer Link: https://app.sola.day/event/web3villages?tab=coming

Areas of Focus:

• Web3 Product Development; Fundraising and Pitching; Startup Team Building.

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After Devcon, there are two other Pop-up Cities taking place, this time in Pattaya, Bangkok and Koh Samui. Namely, these projects will be ZuThailand and ZuGarden. Please note that the locations listed above are not official and may change.

This will likely be my last article on the Pop-up and Zuzalu ecosystem for a few months while I focus on building ZuForever, an infrastructure and coordination organization that aims to solve the biggest barrier in the ecosystem - housing and co-living. ZuForever aims to be a for-profit DAO that will be profitable from the get-to, so if you want to learn more and participate in our co-living experiences, please feel free to join our community here and say hi!

Until next time, thank you for reading!