The Onchain City Manifesto
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Look around and you’ll see a parallel world already being built. One that is permissionless, borderless, and moves at the speed of light. A world that allows us to create, innovate and iterate. A world that anyone can access with nothing more than an internet connection and a device.
Step out of this world and back into the physical one, and you hit a wall. A world slowed by bureaucracy, paperwork, and fragmented systems. The gap between these two worlds is massive and is widening as technology accelerates.
It’s clear that the internet has rewired our expectations. We know what good UX feels like. We know how fast systems can move. Yet some governments remain stuck in outdated loops. It’s unclear whether that is by design, inertia, or failure of imagination. The systems that bottleneck us must be rethought from the ground up. A bridge between the two worlds needs to be built.
Onchain City is that bridge. A new model where governments operate like startups, deliver services like SaaS platforms, and treat citizens not as property, but as valued customers. We have technologies like verifiable proofs and intelligent systems, yet we run on PDFs and paper. We have an agentic economy that operates 24/7, yet we wait days, weeks, and sometimes months for a human to click a button. The downstream effect of legacy bureaucratic systems is suppressed economic development, which is later felt by citizens through taxes and inflation.
We see a future where governments offer sovereignty-as-a-service: maintaining autonomy while delegating process. A frictionless, globally interoperable system where citizens can travel, transact, and build without borders. Nations that embrace this shift will attract the talent, capital, and momentum of a generation born digital. Those that resist will fall behind.
We stand at an inflection point; continue to circle inside a bureaucratic loop, or choose a path that accelerates humanity towards an interconnected and productive society. Sovereignty should not be a tool of control, but a technology that reshapes how we operate in the world.
Our prediction is that this is inevitable. The internet has already redefined how we speak, create, and exchange value. The next frontier is the way we live. Our mobility, our access, our ability to move as freely in the physical world as we do online. It is the foundation of a truly global society.
