Network School, the physical “startup society” founded by former Coinbase chief technology officer Balaji Srinivasan, lost its Malaysia licence and reappeared in Kazakhstan in the space of a single news cycle. When the Iskandar Puteri City Council revoked the business licence of NS0 Malaysia Sdn Bhd and ordered the campus out of Forest City by 22 July 2026, the striking detail was not the eviction. It was that Srinivasan already had the next home lined up. The speed of the Network School pivot is the story everyone is repeating, and it deserves a closer, more skeptical read.
In this article
- The Network School timeline: two years up, forty-eight hours out
- Inside the Forest City shutdown
- The Kazakhstan pivot: a framework, not a campus
- Why the speed is genuinely impressive
- What the Network School saga actually proves
- How Network School compares to other startup societies
- Kazakhstan’s crypto and AI ambitions
- What to watch next for Network School
The Network School timeline: two years up, forty-eight hours out
Network School opened in Forest City in 2024 as Srinivasan’s proof-of-concept for the “network state” — the thesis, laid out in his 2022 book, that online communities can crowdfund territory and eventually earn diplomatic recognition. By 2025–26 it had grown to a claimed 400-plus members from more than 70 nationalities, with a few hundred in residence at any time and, by Srinivasan’s account, over RM100 million invested in the campus. A RM500 million expansion was on the table.
Then, in July 2026, social-media accusations that Israeli nationals had entered Malaysia on second passports to attend the programme collided with a country that has no diplomatic relations with Israel. A multi-agency investigation followed. Immigration officers checked the hotel on 15 July and reviewed 266 people from 40 countries — and, crucially, found their documents appeared to be in order. The licence was pulled anyway, on the narrower ground that a premises was operating without a valid business licence.
Inside the Forest City shutdown
The distinction between the trigger and the mechanism is where most coverage of Network School gets sloppy. The Israeli-applicant controversy was the political spark; the legal tool used to close the campus was mundane licensing paperwork. The expansion was shelved, the premises were later closed and seized, and a two-year experiment in building a borderless founder community ended with immigration raids, viral accusations and a very public scramble for a new host. For a project built on the promise of frictionless global mobility, the friction turned out to be very local and very real.
The Kazakhstan pivot: a framework, not a campus
The replacement is real but thin. On 21 July, Srinivasan announced a memorandum of understanding with Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry — signed by Zhaslan Madiyev for the ministry — to cooperate on artificial intelligence, innovation, technology entrepreneurship and “human capital development.” The plan promises expedited visas, streamlined redomiciliation and active recruitment of global talent. There is no opening date and no confirmed site.
That matters, because a memorandum with a ministry can be announced in a day. A functioning residential community of hundreds of people — with housing, food, healthcare, schooling and social fabric — cannot. The velocity we are all applauding is the speed of a press release, not the speed of a relocation.
Why the speed is genuinely impressive
None of that erases the achievement. Most organisations hit with an immigration probe, viral accusations and a licence revocation in a foreign country would spend months in legal defence and crisis communications. Srinivasan reframed a forced exit as a strategic upgrade before the story could harden into “shut down,” keeping the narrative on his own terms: mobility, optionality, a community that no single host can pin down. For a movement whose core promise is exit over voice, being seen to exit cleanly is the product demo. Whatever else one thinks of the network state, the operational reflexes on display were real.
What the Network School saga actually proves
Here is the uncomfortable irony. The network-state thesis is that a portable, cloud-first community achieves a kind of sovereignty — leverage over states rather than dependence on them. What the Malaysia episode demonstrated is closer to the opposite. Network School was entirely at the mercy of one city council’s licensing decision and one national government’s mood. It did not negotiate from strength; it was evicted. And the fix is to rebuild the identical dependency in Kazakhstan, this time on a single ministry’s goodwill.
Fast pivoting is not sovereignty. It is nomadism — impressive, but structurally fragile. A community that must relocate every time it offends a host has not transcended the state system; it has become a tenant with a very good moving company. Read this way, the speed of the Network School exit is less a flex than a symptom.
How Network School compares to other startup societies
Network School is not the only attempt to turn Srinivasan’s book into brick and mortar. Próspera, the special economic zone on the Honduran island of Roatán, chose the opposite strategy: land first, with a long-term legal charter, and is now locked in an investor-state arbitration dispute with the Honduran government — proof that putting down roots carries its own political risk.
Praxis has raised capital toward a permanent “crypto city” but has yet to break ground. The Zuzalu pop-up in Montenegro spawned a diaspora of temporary “pop-up villages” that lean into transience by design.
Against that field, Network School was the most tangible day-to-day community — hundreds of people actually living together — which is exactly why its forced move is such an instructive stress test.
It is worth comparing with slower, land-first bids for self-determination such as the micronation Liberland and its 2026 citizenship push, and with the state-backed hubs courting the same founders at events like the Global Blockchain Show in Riyadh.
Kazakhstan’s crypto and AI ambitions
Kazakhstan is not signing with Network School out of charity. Astana has spent years positioning itself as a digital-asset and technology hub: it briefly became one of the world’s largest bitcoin-mining destinations after China’s 2021 crackdown, it has piloted a digital tenge central bank digital currency, and the Astana International Financial Centre has built a distinct legal zone to attract foreign capital.
A memorandum with a marquee Western technologist advances a national branding agenda around AI and innovation.
Both sides get something: Srinivasan gets fast visas and a cooperative government, and Kazakhstan gets a headline that signals it is open for the internet’s most mobile founders. That mutual interest is a strength, but it also means Network School’s welcome lasts precisely as long as the political calculus holds.
What to watch next for Network School
For the broader startup-society movement — Próspera, Praxis and the Zuzalu diaspora — Network School is now the highest-profile live test of whether “just leave” is a viable governance model. The Kazakhstan chapter will answer the questions the Forest City chapter raised.
Will members actually move to a landlocked Central Asian state, or was the appeal always Singapore-adjacent, English-speaking, tropical Forest City? What happens to the RM100 million already spent and the Malaysians employed? And does swapping one Muslim-majority host for another resolve the geopolitical friction that triggered the crisis, or merely relocate it? Watch three signals: how many current members commit to relocating, whether the MoU converts into a signed lease and a start date, and whether Kazakhstan grants any binding legal autonomy or merely fast-tracked visas.
Key takeaways
Balaji Srinivasan moved fast, but a MoU is not a campus; the Israeli-applicant row was the trigger while an unlicensed-premises finding was the legal mechanism; and the episode tested the network-state thesis more than it proved it. The open question is simple: Balaji moved fast, but did Network School move forward?
Frequently asked questions
Why did Network School leave Malaysia? Authorities in Johor revoked the operating licence of the entity running Network School in Forest City after a controversy over alleged Israeli participants triggered a multi-agency immigration investigation; the campus was ordered to close by 22 July 2026.
Where is Network School moving next? Network School signed a memorandum of understanding with Kazakhstan to establish a new campus offering expedited visas and streamlined redomiciliation, though no opening date or site has been confirmed.
Sources: The Block; TNGlobal; crypto.news; The Network State. Analysis and opinion, not financial or legal advice.
