Why crypto is a poor relation of digital payments

WHEN Balaji Srinivasan stepped on to the stage at Amsterdam’s Network State conference last week, he looked every inch the corporate executive – generally unassuming in a dark suit and sober tie.

But this was no mainstream finance conference. The serial tech investor and former Coinbase technology chief was here to sell his vision for the “Network State” – a supposedly revolutionary next step for the world’s crypto fan base. Srinivasan was clearly promoting his book of the same name, and was unashamed in pushing a movie plan too. But this was also part of a years-long drive by crypto radicals to overhaul societal structures that appear increasingly stretched.

Underpinned by a crypto financial system, Network State’s idea is to reimagine everything from statehood to medicine and tie together millions of people in carved-out enclaves from Honduras to Hungary with a common faith in alternative systems.