How I Invest with David Weisburd: E228

Balaji Srinivasan: “The Dollar Is Already Dead” and What Comes Next

Release Date: October 20, 2025

Episode Overview

In this special episode, David Weisburd interviews Balaji Srinivasan — former CTO of Coinbase, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z), and best-selling author of "The Network State". The discussion dives deep into Balaji’s provocative thesis that the dollar, and by extension the current rules-based world order, is being rapidly undermined by crypto and internet-native institutions. The conversation covers the rise of "network states," their historical precedents, the failure of legacy systems, the exponential rise of decentralized currency, new models for investment, and Balaji’s new fund for radical techno-capital.

Throughout, Balaji blends history, technology, economics, and philosophy, painting a vision of a future where new forms of sovereignty, community, and wealth are emerging. The discussion is lively, fast-paced, and filled with fascinating analogies, memorable quotes, and practical examples.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Rise and Concept of Network States

• Historical precedents: Balaji draws parallels between Israel (diasporic community uniting to form a nation), Singapore (CEO-founder model), America (startup country with the Bill of Rights), and India (independence via nonviolence) as variations of foundational ideas now manifesting as "Network States".

  "We've started new companies, we've started new currencies, can we start new cities or even countries?" (03:13, Balaji)

• Network State in one image: Balaji outlines how communities can form purely online, then ‘print out’ into real-world nodes — towns, suburbs, and ultimately a distributed country:

  • Online-first organization
  • Increasing crowdfunding of physical spaces
  • Shared values and digital alignment replacing geographic proximity

  "If Bitcoin was a decentralized currency, a network state is a decentralized country. It's spread out all over the world ... but their hearts are in one place." (05:36, Balaji)

• Distributed vs. centralized geography:

  "It also means you can get nuked and you can get invaded... the Internet was built to resist a nuclear attack." (07:25, Balaji)
  The distributed model offers resilience and is born from the same logic as the original military internet.

2. Failures of Legacy Governance vs. Software Iteration

• Government as legacy software:
  Governments push out huge legislative changes without testing; in software, everything is tested and rolled out in increments.

  "There's no provision for bug tracking or feedback... everything is just pushed live to prod." (15:37, Balaji)

• Decentralized digital governance:
  DAOs are early forms, allocating billions with transparent, binding votes. Examples like Arbitrum ($6B Treasury) illustrate the point:

  "Just the fact that people can self organize into these communities with binding votes for very large amounts of money..." (26:08, Balaji)

3. Crypto as the Next Political Battleground

• Bitcoin vs. Fiat Collapse:

  "Every fiat currency over the last 10 years has collapsed against the dollar... but the dollar has collapsed against Bitcoin." (11:52, Balaji)
  Since inception, smart money is "exiting the dollar for bitcoin," with BTC appreciating by six orders of magnitude.

• Crypto as infrastructure:
  Crypto provides property rights, dispute resolution, identity systems online (ENS, for example) — essentially “half of a government — the digital half”.

• Failure to take the Internet seriously:
  Balaji likens current disbelief in Bitcoin’s importance to the fast transition from social networking being trivial to it becoming the heart of global politics.

  "If in the 2010s all politics became social media, I think in the 2020s, all politics becomes crypto tribalism." (11:39, Balaji)

4. Varieties of Democracy and Capitalism: Past and Future

• Democracy as a large, forkable social operating system:
  Balaji describes four branches: blue (Democrat), red (Republican), Indian, and techno/crypto democracy.

  "These are social operating systems..." (18:55, Balaji)
  Like Christianity or communism, democracy and capitalism have many variants that keep evolving.

• Internet-native models already emerging:

  • Estonia: cryptographically verifiable voting
  • Singapore: SingPass as unified identity
  • DAOs: Online governance, self-organization at a scale rivaling small countries

5. DAOs: Use Cases and Early Manifestations of Network States

• Core DAO activities:
  • Software development (funding engineering)
  • Community coordination and physical meetups
  • Content creation (media, education)
  • Research (e.g., VitaDAO for scientific research, circumventing traditional academia)
  • Real estate crowdfunding (e.g., LinksDAO golf clubs)

"The real point is that you can crowdfund real estate with crypto, even if it starts with a seemingly silly application..." (33:25, Balaji)

• Printing out the cloud
  The internet’s capital is beginning to materialize in the real world.

• Physical manifestation examples:

  • Zusulu: inspired by Balaji’s writing, renting villages in Montenegro
  • Network State Conference: Real-world gathering of these digital-first communities

6. Investment Philosophy and Balaji Fund

• Fund’s “Techno Capital for Techno Radicals”:
  Balaji’s new fund is ideologically invested in startups offering alternatives to failing institutions (education, healthcare, manufacturing, etc.)
  • Key backers: Notable tech founders and VCs (Naval, Brian Armstrong, Marc Andreessen, the Winklevoss twins, etc.)
• High-Risk Seed and Power Law:

  "I look at investing as a tool to build the world that we want to build." (36:42, Balaji)

  • Portfolio construction focused on radical, ambitious founders/solutions, especially among global Indian/crypto talent.
  • Operationally: Many small checks ($100–250k), indexing on bar-passing opportunities rather than optimizing for percentage ownership.

7. Systemic Failures in the West and the Need for Parallel Systems

• US inefficiency:
  E.g., China’s 9-hour train station build versus multi-year US projects; TSMC Arizona chip fab stalled by bureaucracy

  "When you’re a thousand x off from the state of the art... you’re going to fall way behind, you’re not in the game." (46:38, Balaji)

• Barriers due to regulations, unions, misalignment

• Key hypothesis:
  If you’re serious about technology, you need to build your own sovereignty.

  "The problems are upstream of the technology." (69:11, David)

8. Geopolitics, America, and China

• China as the new industrial powerhouse:

  • #1 in steel, trade, shipbuilding, high-speed rail
  • US/China decoupling, competition as not just high-tech but also medium- and low-tech

  "China can screw you on the screws — because they make all the screws and the nuts and the bolts too." (73:40, Balaji)

• US doubling down on failing processes rather than “building better”

• Crypto as a new “rules-based order”:

  "Bitcoin is hiding in plain sight the base of the next rules-based order ... hundreds of millions globally, including Americans and Chinese, all trust." (131:23, Balaji)
  Blockchain is potentially a fair, globally trusted legal/institutional backbone.

9. Macro Trends: Centralization, Decentralization, Rebundling

• History running backwards:
  • 1950: Peak centralization (one phone company, few countries, few media sources, etc.)
  • 2020s: Radical decentralization (internet, social networks, blockchain)
  • Now: Cycle turning toward “rebundling” with opt-in communities/network states

  "Bundling, unbundling, rebundling, centralization, decentralization, recentralization..." (124:47, Balaji)

10. Practical LP/Fund Details

• Rolling fund on AngelList:
  • Investors (QPs) can self-serve and join at any time
  • Fees support content, conferences, professionalized ops, and network building
  • LPs can help by attending the conference, investing, promoting portfolio companies, or sourcing deals.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Precedent and Future of Network States

"If Bitcoin was a decentralized currency, a network state is a decentralized country. It's spread out all over the world ... but their hearts are in one place." (05:36, Balaji)

On Institutional Failure

"Everything that the government touches ... rises in price, whatever technology touches, falls in price." (43:10, Balaji)
"If you're serious about technology, you need to build your own sovereignty." (68:52, Balaji)

On Investment Approach

"I look at investing as a tool to build the world that we want to build." (36:42, Balaji)
"Being ambitious doesn't mean you don't do the blocking and tackling of having a CFO ... eyes on the prize, but nailing all the details." (91:25, Balaji)

On the Internet's True Stakes

"I don't think people really take the Internet seriously enough." (12:36, Balaji)

On Crypto's Place in Global Trust

"It's hiding in plain sight the next ... base of the next rules-based order." (131:23, Balaji)
"An American knows that the bitcoin blockchain will not favor them or a Chinese person against each other. The rules are constant, they're written in code." (132:07, Balaji)

On Decentralization

"History is running in reverse ... 1950 was peak centralization ... now we're radically decentralizing technologically." (119:36, Balaji)

On the Future of Social Systems

"Just like that, one realizes, okay, there are different flavors of democracy. It's a big word and it contains a lot of things." (18:55, Balaji)

On Startup Advice and Investment Philosophy

"Diligence I have much higher error bars on measuring in the short run ... often people who were above my minimum intelligence bar actually have much higher grit than you might think and outperform people who are smarter but have less grit." (104:44, Balaji)

On Opt-In Orders and Moral Legitimacy

"You can opt into constraints. That's what signing a contract is ... the moral legitimacy of it comes from the consent." (127:17, Balaji)

Timestamps for Critical Segments

• Network State explained & historical precedents: 02:04–07:00
• Centralized vs. decentralized governance: 07:17–11:44
• On the collapse of fiat and rise of Bitcoin: 11:52–17:42
• Crypto democracy and variations of democracy: 17:46–25:55
• DAOs and digital governance in practice: 25:57–33:25
• "Printing out" the cloud in physical space: 33:25–35:11
• Investment philosophy — The Biology Fund: 35:11–41:44
• Systemic failures (US vs China), need for sovereignty: 41:44–69:15
• China's industrial dominance and risks: 71:41–81:48
• Cycle of centralization/decentralization/rebundling: 119:10–126:52
• Crypto as new rules-based order: 131:21–134:49
• Balaji's rolling fund & LP expectations: 137:19–146:23

Tone, Language & Final Thoughts

The conversation is intellectually dense but accessible, blending tech, investing, history, and geopolitics. Balaji is assertive, imaginative, and frequently uses vivid metaphors (“printing out the cloud,” “cloud jurisdictions,” “social operating systems”). Weisburd grounds the discussion with pointed questions, occasionally playing contrarian to draw out further insight.

For the uninitiated: This episode gives a comprehensive, thought-provoking examination of how crypto-computational logic is reformatting society from money and community up to government and global order, and practical advice for those interested in investing in this revolution.

How to Find Balaji & Take Part

• Rolling Fund: balaji.com
• Twitter/X: @balajis
• Upcoming Conference: Network State Conference in Singapore

“I look at investing as a tool to build the world that we want to build.” (36:42, Balaji Srinivasan)