The Network State Podcast — Episode #36: Arjun Khemani

Date: February 18, 2026
Host: Balaji Srinivasan (A)
Guest: Arjun Khemani (B), Zcash Contributor, Founder

Overview

This episode explores the future beyond tech giants and first-generation cryptocurrencies: the idea of startup countries and network states. Balaji interviews Arjun Khemani, a 19-year-old entrepreneur from India, about generational perspectives on privacy, digital sovereignty, why Zcash deserves a bigger role in the network state era, and how Gen Z is reshaping the narrative and excitement around private digital money and societies.

Key Discussion Points

1. Growing Up Digital — Gen Z’s Perspective

• Balaji draws a generational contrast, likening younger people to players “spawning” into a chaotic digital world, unlike the stable '90s and 2000s.

  “You Gen Z types, spawning into the middle of this totally chaotic situation. … I just want to tell you, it wasn’t like that in the ’90s and 2000s.” (00:18, A)

• Arjun talks about having always had computers and smartphones; COVID-19 was a turning point leading him to question the conventional path of school and engineering.

  “I was a normal kid up to like 13 … then Covid hit, and I just started questioning the meaning of it all.” (01:12, B)

2. Questioning Convention and Radicalization

• Arjun shares his decision to drop out of high school in India, inspired by autodidactic learning and online communities.

  “When I had to go back to school, I was like, this sucks. I’m out of here.” (02:21, B)

• He recounts his early work (e.g., Airchat) and how that led him into Zcash.

3. Zcash, Privacy, and Digital Sovereignty

• Balaji gives a broad overview of Zcash’s value propositions — privacy, quantum resilience, scalability — and its coalition potential.

  “Zcash is interesting because Solana guys like it, Vitalik likes it, I like it, Naval likes it. … I think we can build a coalition around privacy.” (03:23, A)

• On Privacy:
  • Arjun highlights the importance of privacy, especially with AI advances:

    “Privacy is super important. … You can’t have freedom without privacy.” (04:07, B)

  • Balaji expounds on privacy as a core of sovereignty and creativity:

    “If you’re under surveillance, you’re not sovereign… Privacy is private keys, is private property—almost decentralized and local and individual, as opposed to communal and public.” (04:40, A)

  • Arjun adds:

    “I’m not going to be my authentic self if I’m always being watched… Knowledge creation and wealth creation just comes to a stall if everything is surveilled all the time.” (05:34, B)

  • Balaji connects privacy to the ability to “surprise” and innovate without immediate public scrutiny.

4. Zcash Must Scale – The Scalability Imperative

• Arjun asks why scaling Zcash is a moral imperative.
• Balaji draws analogies to existing solutions like Lightning Network and Ethereum L2s, critiquing their hub-and-spoke and complexity problems:

  “What you really want is onchain scaling. … Solana’s model of just blasting it on chain and having beefier hardware worked.” (12:23, A)

• He frames L2s as “fine as a hack” but sees ZK compression and onchain privacy/scalability as the lasting model.
• Zcash’s technical lead (“Sean BO”), Tachyon roadmap, and its historic security track record get mentioned as promising.

5. The Network State, Geographic Hubs, and New Sovereignties

• Balaji picks out El Salvador, Dubai, and Singapore as the next trio of “crypto capitals,” referencing the need for global direct flights and the logistical hurdles due to US visa/transit restrictions.

  “El Salvador, Dubai, Singapore—those are going to be the three nodes. … President Bukele should set up direct flights between Dubai, El Salvador, and Singapore.” (15:13, A)

6. Network State Currencies: No Monoculture

• There won’t be a single currency for network states:

  “There’s going to be a thousand network states… There’ll be a Solana network state, Ethereum network state … Telegram network state, etc. There will be a Zcash network state.” (16:57, A)

• Zcash’s culture of extreme privacy and academic rigor sometimes made it less commercially known.

  “Most crypto things have a failure mode of being way too commercial… Once in a while you have a project which has the opposite failure mode … [too] academic.” (17:52, A)

• The challenge: Find the right equilibrium between being academic and commercial.

7. Gen Z Cash: Making Privacy Fun

• Balaji notes Arjun’s efforts to rebrand Zcash for Gen Z:

  “You guys have Gen Z cash. … Tell me about that.” (18:27, A)

• Arjun:

  “Yeah, I think the idea is a lot of things start from young people and then the older generations just catch up. … We want to make [privacy] fun, make it sexy, make it cool.” (19:21, B)

  • Highlighting Zashi, an app hiding technical complexities of privacy for better UX.

8. Bitcoin, Zcash, and Coexistence

• Balaji uses analogies (drones, politicians, social networks) to stress Bitcoin’s unrivaled brand power:

  “That’s a useful way of modeling … most people, the one name in crypto is bitcoin. … There’s a power law on brand.” (21:10, A)

• Transparency vs. Privacy:
  • Bitcoin’s transparency allows for things like proof of reserves (important for leaders like Bukele).
  • Zcash’s privacy allows for other use cases.

  “It’s possible that Bitcoin and Zcash coexist—Bitcoin is transparent, Zcash is private.” (23:19, A)

  • Arjun adds: “That’s why Zcash has T addresses.” (23:40, B)
• The distinction: Immortality/immutability (Bitcoin) vs. programmability (Ethereum/Solana), and public record (Bitcoin) vs. privacy (Zcash).

9. Concluding Thoughts — Multipolar Crypto Future

• Balaji:

  “I don’t know what the future holds, but I’m pro-Bitcoin, pro-Ethereum, pro-Solana, pro-Zcash. … We’re still in this very non zero sum mode.” (26:29, A)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Generational Perspective:

  “You Gen Z types, spawning into the middle of this totally chaotic situation. … I don’t know what your perception is, or maybe you perceive this chaos as normal.” – Balaji (00:18, A)

• On Privacy and Surveillance:

  “If you’re under surveillance, you’re not sovereign. … Anything you do can and will be used against you.” – Balaji (04:33, A)

• On Scaling Zcash:

  “Zcash must scale just means right now, how does Bitcoin scale offchain … What you really want is onchain scaling, just blast the transactions on chain.” – Balaji (06:55 & 12:23, A)

• On Brand Power:

  “There’s a power law on brand. … The one name in crypto is bitcoin.” – Balaji (21:10, A)

• On the Role of Zcash:

  “Bitcoin and Zcash coexist — Bitcoin is transparent and Zcash is private. … You may want to have proof of reserves.” – Balaji (23:19, A)

• On Gen Z Cash:

  “We want to make [privacy] fun, make it sexy, make it cool.” – Arjun (19:21, B)

Key Timestamps

• 00:18 – Generational context and Gen Z’s digital upbringing
• 02:21 – Arjun drops out of high school, enters the crypto/startup world
• 03:23 – The coalition around Zcash and privacy
• 04:33 – Surveillance, privacy, and sovereignty
• 06:55 – Zcash scalability and the limitations of Bitcoin Lightning Network
• 15:13 – El Salvador, Dubai, Singapore as future crypto nodes
• 16:57 – Why there will be many network state currencies
• 18:27 – Launching Gen Z Cash: A new approach to onboarding young users
• 21:10 – The insurmountable brand advantage of Bitcoin
• 23:19 – How Bitcoin and Zcash can play complementary roles

Summary

This episode delivers a deep, multigenerational conversation about the future of money, society, and digital governance. Arjun Khemani represents the emerging Gen Z force, aiming to make privacy tech approachable and exciting, while Balaji provides structural analysis on Internet power laws, digital sovereignty, and the practicalities of future “startup countries.” Together, they explore how political and technological shifts will shape the choice and meaning of digital money — and why more than one chain or state will matter in the coming decades.