The start of digital countries and why I bought my first NFT.

A couple of weeks back I decided to buy my first Non-fungible token (NFT).

I won't go into explaining what NFTs are, but I will recommend that you read NFTs Are Worth Understanding by Visualize Value.

The whole concept of Visualize Value in itself is pretty cool and the creator of it (Jack Butcher) is like the modern-day Banksy (of the web).

But back to my story ...

I was so bought into the idea that I didn't think twice as I searched for my wallet, entered my card details — and made the buy.

I was a proud NFT owner!

“Wait. What did I just do?”

Me — someone that tends to live frugally spending close to four hundred pounds (£400) on a piece of digital art?

Oh no.

Bu it wasn't just the NFT that hooked me piece per se. It was the story behind why I should buy it and be part of the group owning one that initially got my attention.

I'm a big sucker for community-related initiatives. You'll see this theme across these posts. Combine that with future thinking. Maybe even investment in Africa, and I'm all in.

And... that's exactly what happened.

While reading Caleb Maru’s Tech Safari weekly newsletter, I came across the topic of growing the African Diaspora community in a digital country.

He was talking about Afropolitan.

Like you, "Who?" was my first thought.

Afropolitan is a collective of African Diasporas from across all fields of tech, art, media, and finance who believe in the mission that all Africans should live abundant lives.

And even more daring, the members of Afropolitan want to build the first-ever internet country.

You're probably now wondering if that was a typo. No, it wasn't — and yes, an internet country can be a thing.

I'll explain more about Afropolitan and the NFT. I need to shine some light on this idea around an internet-formed country. How we continue to connect online will play a pivotal role offline.

Online communities continue to grow, and people are wondering what else can they get from be part of these. What is next? How we continue to connect online will play a pivotal role offline.

As we align on shared interests and values, we want to be part of communities with a collective purpose and capability to make voted-on, collective action. A community-driven with shared ideas, with access to physical and digital input, can open many doors for its members worldwide.

It sounds bizarre to imagine comprehending something like that working currently, but network states will make it possible.

The Rise of the network state

Balaji Srinivasan is the former Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Coinbase. He also is also the author of the book and article The Network State - How to Start a New Country.

Paraphrasing Balaji, we currently live in nation states. That's everything started with land. And on maps, each nation has its own piece of land (a single state). But, the network state on the other hand starts with the 7+ billion humans of the world and brings people together to create one or more networks.

Unlike a nation, a network isn't limited in scale. A city for example can only hold so many people. But a network can grow without this worry. It’s geographically not limited with more people connected thanks to the internet.

The idea of forming a network country sounds unimaginable until we put into context that we have influencers with over 500+ million followers. Or that some pages on the internet can amass millions of loyal fans.

Here are some interesting figures from OneUp Blog:

⚽️ Cristian Ronaldo - 539 Million

💄 Kylie Jenner - 379 million

🎤 Selena Gomez - 373 Million

🪨 Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson - 360 million.

In Balaji’s own word words “No one can claim that it's infeasible to build million person online communities or billion dollar digital currencies … The cloud country concept "just" requires stacking together many existing technologies, rather than inventing new ones like Mars-capable rockets or permanent-habitation seasteads.”

Can it be that simple? Well … yeah. Kinda.

We’re in a world where in less than 5 clicks we can search and make a payment for delivery straight to our homes.

Is it hard to imagine a digitally-formed country?

What the network state makes possible is the connectedness between people, location and technology. It bypasses the usual difficulties around contact, trade and logistics.

So what is needed to see this digital state community vision bear fruit?

For something like Afropolitan to work, it first needs a number of committed members. And this is where my NFT purchase meets the visionary goal Afropolitan has.

NFT and citizenship

For the first 500 members, Afropolitan offered rare citizen passports (See image below) along with other valuable perks to the digital nation they are building including:

• Access to a global community of professional builders who understand your needs.

• Curated peer working groups by Afropolitan to learn and lean on other members.

• Insider knowledge and insights from industry leaders and cultural icons through hosted private seminars;

• Virtual and in-person gatherings and more.

Think of it as a private club membership with cultural and educational experiences, but made much more powerful by the opportunity to create an impact with like-minded builders.

Afropolitan's Manifesto

So the NFTs look pretty cool.

But is that all that it took to persuade me? Well … no.

While reading about Afropolitan a couple of words stood out to me in their manifesto.

All I could think about was the endless possibilities...

• Are we seeing the frontier of what's coming next?

• Is this something that can actually take shape in years to come?

• What opportunities are there for me to meet visionary thinkers and experts in their skills?

• And, how can I stake my own beliefs into something like this?

The light bulb moment. Become part of Afropolitan. Not only can my joining gain me insight into their whole process, but I can have input too.

What could Afropolitan be?

What is needed to see this network state community vision bear fruit?

The founding members of Afropolitan came up with the below steps in their manifesto as a way to direct where their vision aims to go:

• Build a network that is passionate and engaged, ready to support and build the digital state. (Where Afropolitan currently is). This is an online community. The legitimacy will come from whether people opt to follow Afropolitan or not.
  

• Create a Government-as-a-Service to serve the members with updates, utilities and the latest developments. Unlike a social network, this service will have the purpose to coordinate its members for their mutual best interests.

• Form a minimum viable state (Online) to establish legitimacy, and be well-equipped to govern itself and serve its members from the digital to the physical world.
  

• And lastly, build a Foundation on any existing leverage. This will help increase buying power to occupy physical land that generates opportunities for members in the long term.

If it all sounds unthinkable, it’s because it is. But once upon a time, the idea of a rocket launching off to space and landing back on earth wasn’t possible too. Thanks to Space X this is now imaginable. Battery-charged cars were a pipe dream until Tesla Cars made it possible. Or should I mention the iPhone? That’s only been around for 16 years.

I’ll leave you with a final quote from Balaji to help you think about the future.

In the future, I'll cover another update on the ins and outs of Afropolitan, the Network State and, even my own input in the growing community.

For reading all the way to the end, it was only right I showed you my Afropolitan Citizen pass.

Awesome right?

That’s it.

Until next time.

Hatibu.