---
title: from popup city to places that fund each other
canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/from-popup-city-to-places-that-fund-each-other
markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/from-popup-city-to-places-that-fund-each-other.md
subtitle: a month-long city leaves; the watershed stays. an invitation to build the network
category: onchain
---

# from popup city to places that fund each other

*a month-long city leaves; the watershed stays. an invitation to build the network*

"A week is a break from your life, two months is your life," Vitalik Buterin wrote in December 2025, looking back on Zuzalu, the popup city he ran in Montenegro in 2023. Later in the same essay he adds: "effective local community building requires coming back to a place for years, and not just doing a one-off."

A **popup city** is a temporary community, usually a few weeks to two months, where people from one or more online communities live and work together in a single place to test culture, collaboration and sometimes governance. Its rent and meals can be a real contribution to the local economy, Buterin notes, especially off-peak. When it ends, the people go home. The watershed stays.

If you run popup cities, build network nations or coordi-nations, or work on Ethereum localism or a bioregion, you already know how to gather people and give them tools. What is missing is a way for places to pay for one another's keeping.

:::johnson
**a popup city leaves after a month. the watershed stays.**

The network of places that fund each other is not built yet. We want to build it with you.

[tell us what you would bring →](/contact?from=guide&topic=nature-state)
:::

## what popup cities have shown

Popup cities have taught a lot. A fair reading, with the evidence limits:

| project | what is evidenced | the limit |
|---|---|---|
| Zuzalu, Montenegro, March–May 2023 | About 200 residents and 600 visitors using Zupass credentials, per its developers | A completed experiment; successors are independent |
| Edge City | Repeated popup villages, including Goa, October 11 to November 1, 2026. Buterin has heard it is cash-flow positive | A working event network, not a permanent town |
| Network School | A hub that hosts popups, in Buterin's framing; residence, meals, coworking and learning, now in Astana under an MoU with Kazakhstan | Its Forest City, Malaysia, operator's business licence was cancelled, effective July 22, 2026 |
| Cabin | Distributed coliving neighborhoods with token-based governance | The formal DAO wound down in 2025; neighborhoods continue. Its own account: overhead outgrew what the network could sustain |

Buterin names the limits plainly: popups are expensive, involving local people "in a way deeper than buying food and rent from them" is hard, and over time they drift toward conferences. His answer is permanent hubs, long-lasting places where a culture is lived. That is the right instinct, and a hub still depends on places beyond its own walls.

## a popup city leaves. the watershed stays.

Every community still drinks from a watershed. Water, species and neighbors cross property lines. No community, however well run, can buy independence from the watershed around it.

So the network a **nature state** needs is ecological as much as social. A nature state starts from a living place, such as a water source, a habitat and the people already caring for it, and organizes money, work, homes and belonging around keeping it alive. Its network has to include places that never host anyone, such as the headwater above the town or the wetland that holds the flood. They get paid because inhabited places depend on them, not because anyone visits.

## what is already built

Some of the plumbing exists on Base today:

- **Accounts at any size.** A place, a purpose or a people can hold an account in its own name, from a parcel to a bioregion, inside a group namespace such as `.ensurance` or `.basin`. See [place, purpose, people at any size](/guide/place-purpose-people-at-any-size?from=guide) and [a place and a purpose can hold an account](/guide/a-place-and-a-purpose-can-hold-an-account?from=guide). Browse [groups](/groups?from=guide) and [agents](/agents?from=guide).
- **Accounts that can hold a place's certificate.** One account can hold the certificate of a place it depends on. [Every account has two lists](/guide/every-account-has-two-lists?from=guide): what it depends on, and what depends on it. [No place is resilient alone](/guide/no-place-is-resilient-alone?from=guide) shows why the region is the unit that works.
- **Payment in money people can spend.** [Certificates](/specific?from=guide) for named natural assets can be priced in USDC or EURC, and primary sale proceeds go to the configured recipient. A coin received is not converted on arrival; conversion needs a market.

An account is not title, and it gives no one authority over a place. [Community land rights come first](/guide/community-land-rights-come-first?from=guide).

## what we want to build

None of this is live: no federation, membership, legal entity or governance has been formed.

**A federation of places that fund each other.** Places would share skills, financing, training and carefully defined visits, while each keeps authority within its actual mandate. A crew might help restore a neighboring site. A stronger enterprise might help fund a source parcel that has no visitors and never will.

**Nonhuman life inside the commitments.** The distinctive part would be putting the river, the species and future ecological capacity inside the network's duties. That takes enforceable duties and accountable representation, not a slogan about species as citizens. [Sovereign nature](/guide/sovereign-nature?from=guide) covers the rights-of-nature history.

**"Nation" as institutions and belonging.** There is no sovereignty claim. A nature state would operate inside existing jurisdictions, trade with the wider economy and allow overlapping memberships. That is closer to a coordi-nation, where, in Primavera De Filippi and Jessy Kate Schingler's words, "individual nodes are not subsumed by the network," than to a network state that crowdfunds territory and seeks diplomatic recognition.

## build it with us

A popup that comes back to the same valley for years, as Buterin recommends, could also leave something behind: an account for the watershed it drank from, and a share of its budget paid to the people keeping it.

| who | what you bring | what you could build with us |
|---|---|---|
| Popup-city and hub organizers | Community, operations, a reason to return | An account for the place you host in, funded by each gathering |
| Funders, Ethereum localism and Regen Coordination groups | Funding rounds and local organizing; Regen Coordination reported over $370,000 raised and distributed in a year, as of April 2025 | Rounds that route to places, not only projects |
| Network-nation and coordi-nation builders | Governance designs, credentials, membership tools | Membership that counts labor, knowledge and care, kept separate from residence and money |
| Bioregional groups | Knowledge of the watershed, its people and its rights | The map of which places depend on which |

You bring community and tools. A place brings the living asset. **Ensurance** brings accounts and payment rails. If your community holds a treasury, see what [onchain groups](/solutions/onchain-groups?from=guide&topic=nature-state) can fund through **ensurance** now. If you want to design the network itself, [write to us](/contact?from=guide&topic=nature-state). If you have a protocol-wide idea, [suggest it](/general/create?mode=suggest&from=guide).

## frequently asked questions

### what is a popup city?

A temporary community, often one to two months long, living together in one place to test culture and collaboration; Zuzalu in 2023 is the best-known Ethereum example.

### is a nature state a country?

No. It is a question about institutions and belonging inside existing jurisdictions, with no sovereignty claim.

### can a popup city fund the place it visits?

A gathering or its organizers can buy a certificate for a named natural asset today; proceeds go to the configured recipient. A standing arrangement between gatherings and places is not built.

## sources

[Buterin, "Let a thousand societies bloom," December 17, 2025](https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2025/12/17/societies.html) — Zuzalu's size and duration; "two months is your life"; popup costs, involving locals, rent and food as a local contribution; drift toward conferences; coming back to a place for years; permanent hubs; Network School as a hub; Buterin has heard Edge City is cash-flow positive

[Devcon forum, DIP-46: POD-based ticketing at Devcon](https://forum.devcon.org/t/dip-46-pod-based-ticketing-at-devcon/3850) — Zuzalu in Montenegro until May 25, 2023; about 200 residents and 600 visitors on Zupass

[Edge City, India 2026](https://www.edgecity.live/india26) — Popup village in Mandrem, North Goa, October 11 to November 1, 2026; concluded

[Network School](https://ns.com/) — Astana campus; MoU with the Republic of Kazakhstan; housing, meals, gym, coworking

[Johor State Government, July 21, 2026](https://majujohor.my/pembatalan-lesen-perniagaan-dan-arahan-penghentian-operasi-network-school-di-forest-city/) — Business licence of Network School's Forest City operator cancelled; cessation effective July 22, 2026

[Cabin](https://cabin.city/) — Formal DAO wound down in 2025; treasury distributed to token holders; neighborhoods continue; operational overhead

[De Filippi and Schingler, "Coordi-nations: a new institutional structure for global cooperation," June 13, 2023](https://blockchaingov.eu/coordi-nations-a-new-institutional-structure-for-global-cooperation/) — Nodes not subsumed by the network; blockchain optional

[ReFi DAO, "Ethereum Localism × Regen Coordination," April 16, 2025](https://blog.refidao.com/ethereum-localism-x-regen-coordination/) — Ethereum localism; coordi-nations as a foundation; over $370,000 raised and distributed over the past year (self-reported)

[Srinivasan, "The network state in one sentence"](https://thenetworkstate.com/the-network-state-in-one-sentence) — Online community that crowdfunds territory and seeks diplomatic recognition

## the series

1. [a network state starts online. a nature state starts on the land.](/guide/what-is-a-nature-state?from=guide) — **Read first:** What a nature state is, what is already built, and what we want to build with others
2. [what a nature bank could be](/guide/what-a-nature-bank-could-be?from=guide) — Accounts, currencies and reserves for a living place, and what is not a bank
3. [the people who keep a place alive should be able to live there](/guide/the-people-who-keep-a-place-alive-should-be-able-to-live-there?from=guide) — Real pay first, then a home that does not hang on a job or a token price
4. [a village that starts with what not to build](/guide/a-village-that-starts-with-what-not-to-build?from=guide) — One illustrative place: a protected core, homes on the right ground, a lodge that can fail safely
5. [one token can't be your home, your vote and your visit](/guide/one-token-cant-be-your-home-your-vote-and-your-visit?from=guide) — Separate rights for protection, residence, visits, money and voice
6. [from popup city to places that fund each other](/guide/from-popup-city-to-places-that-fund-each-other?from=guide) — A month-long city leaves; the watershed stays. An invitation to build the network