Why Vitalik Started Zuzalu

New @greenpillnet pod out today! 🌐

In this episode of the Network Nations mini-series, Primavera De Filippi & Felix Beer are joined by Vitalik Buterin to reflect on one of the most influential experiments in recent community-building history: Zuzalu.

Vitalik shares the motivations behind Zuzalu, what actually worked (and what didn't), and why many pop-up cities risk drifting into "long conferences" instead of becoming real communities. Together they explore kinship vs telos, culture vs mission, permanence vs mobility, governance by forking, and how zones, tribes, and regulatory sandboxes might interlock to form durable network nations.

A deep, reflective conversation on how digitally aligned communities can evolve into lasting political actors without losing their soul.

🌱 greenpill.network 🌐 networknations.network 🐦 @owocki @greenpillnet https://x.com/yaoeo?lang=en https://x.com/felix_beer?lang=en https://x.com/VitalikButerin https://www.zuzalu.city/

⏱️ Timestamps

00:00 – Why Zuzalu matters for network nations 02:20 – Introducing Vitalik & the Zuzalu experiment 03:40 – From ideas to action: why Zuzalu was created 05:40 – Bringing 200 people together for two months 07:10 – When a pop-up becomes "real life" 09:10 – Membership, visas & selective curation 11:20 – Zuzalu's offshoots: Edge City, Vitalia & more 13:30 – Decentralizing after Zuzalu 15:30 – Why permanence matters 18:10 – Building culture through physical proximity 20:20 – Cities vs tribes vs nations 22:30 – Membership as a spectrum, not binary 24:50 – Bitcoin embassies & cultural recognition 27:00 – Interests vs vibes vs kinship 29:10 – Shared experiences as the glue of community 31:30 – Why kinship is hard to design 33:50 – Internal purpose vs external purpose 36:10 – Telos-driven communities & corporations 38:50 – Prospera, regulation & culture 41:00 – Zones as platforms for tribes 44:40 – Regulatory sandboxes & state experiments 46:50 – Libertarian vs developmentalist approaches 49:10 – Why niche cities beat generic hubs 51:40 – The "archipelago" vision 54:00 – Zones and tribes: separation or fusion? 56:00 – Governance by forking 01:10:00 – Why governance still matters 01:12:10 – Reinvigorating crypto's political vision 01:14:10 – Low-hanging fruit for network nations 01:16:40 – Ethereum as a proto-network nation 01:17:50 – Closing thoughts