Written by: Jessy, Golden Finance

On October 15, Praxis, a project claiming to be the world’s first “cyber nation,” announced that it had raised $525 million.

Of the $525 million in financing, $500 million came from GEM Digital and the remaining $25 million came from Arch Lending. However, the funds have not yet been fully received, and the project needs to cede some rights and achieve the goals of each stage in the future to receive the full amount.

The Praxis project was founded in 2020, when the concept of the metaverse was very popular. Praxis went the other way and wanted to use the concept of a cyber nation to create a "country" or "city" in the real world. Will such a utopian practice succeed?

A new type of special economic zone for science and technology talents

Praxis is building a city from the ground up to advance technology and society.

Currently, the project has reached the stage of site selection and city building. The team is exploring potential locations for city building in Latin America and the Mediterranean region, and it is expected that the selection will be finalized in 2025. The initial phase of the project will cover an area of ​​about 1,000 acres and is planned to accommodate about 10,000 residents.

Founder Dryden Brow envisions the city not only as a place for technological innovation, but also as a place where creativity and courage are core values.

Praxis has already established an online community of 14,000 people. According to the official website of Praxis, anyone can apply to become an initial community member (i.e. Nomad) of the Praxis project by filling out a registration form to join its online community. Currently, its Discord community has about 11,000 members. To become a Steel Visa Citizenship of Praxis, you need to fill out an application form and pass the screening of the project party. The screening criteria are roughly based on whether you believe in technological accelerationism, whether you have the qualities of courage and perseverance, whether you can make practical contributions to the project, etc. According to the project party, there are currently about a thousand people in the Steel Visa Citizenship. Becoming a Steel Visa Citizenship can participate in more specific things of the project. You will also receive project points rewards for these contributions to the project.

Praxis not only wants to build a crypto-friendly city, it wants to promote the development of various new technologies such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, etc.

According to the official website, Praxis has reached cooperation with various emerging technology startups. For example, it has reached cooperation with the Web3 development community uperteam on Solana. The AI ​​project ShogAI will establish its headquarters in the future city of Praxis. Cryopets, a technology longevity startup focused on solving death denial problems, will build its first cryogenic facility in the future city of Praxis. Neurotechnology company Prophetic Inc. will build its largest planned Qualia factory in the city of Praxis.

In the official news of Praxis, this vision is more likened to building a new type of special economic zone for science and technology talents. In the above cooperation, Praxis proposed that it can provide technical talents for these projects and help them recruit. Praxis believes in technological optimism. The project expects to use new technologies as the cornerstone to carry out technological and social changes and build a better human society.

Success is highly dependent on the listing of project tokens

Of the latest $525 million in financing disclosed, $500 million came from GEM Digital. According to the Wall Street Journal, the investment is conditional on Praxis providing GEM with cryptocurrency representing ownership of the project’s real estate development, and Praxis also needs to list these tokens on an exchange.

According to the official disclosure of Praxis, the project has launched a points reward system, Praxis Credits (PRAX), which is used to measure the contribution of project participants to the development of Praxis. People can earn PRAX by providing Commits. Commits are specific behaviors that contribute to the development of Praxis. In other words, this is basically an incentive mechanism for members within the community, and according to the development practice of blockchain projects, the points may be exchanged for project tokens in the future.

In addition, the investment funds will be disbursed in phases, depending on the progress of Praxis' projects. These phases are obtaining local government permits, purchasing land, marking land ownership, starting construction, and attracting residents to the city.

The concept of "cyber state" comes from the crypto thinker Balaji Srinivasan, and this concept embodies people's current imagination of a better society. According to Balaji, the cyber state is a digital country that was initially launched as an online community and then materialized on land when the time is right.

How can blockchain technology help build a cyber state? From a technical perspective: issuing tokens, issuing CityDAO-style citizen NFTs, combining blockchain with zero-knowledge cryptography for secure privacy-preserving voting, etc. Blockchains are like the Lego blocks of crypto-finance and crypto-governance: they are very effective tools for implementing transparent in-protocol rules to manage public resources, assets, and incentives.

At present, most cyber-nation projects are still in the early stages of ideal construction. For example, a cryptocurrency-driven smart city project established by rapper Akon in Senegal in 2018 has only built a few buildings. Zhongben Satoshi Island, a project launched in 2021 to build a dedicated service for crypto industry professionals on an island near Vanuatu, has not made significant progress.

When the cyber nation is truly implemented in real society, it faces many problems that need to be solved.

Take Praxis as an example. From its current financing requirements, we can see that the success of this project depends largely on the successful listing of its tokens. The project is too dependent on crypto finance, which itself has extremely high risks and uncertainties.

When it comes to the actual implementation, when it comes to finding a piece of land in the real world to "build a country", the political resistance will be huge. It needs to find the support of a sovereign country that is open to cryptocurrency, and the range of options is extremely small. Once the land is selected and the project begins construction, how can the tokenization of large-scale real estate be achieved? And what rules should cities and people be organized according to? These specific implementation issues will be huge challenges.

Overall, it remains to be seen whether Praxis can turn its vision into reality, but if it succeeds, it may provide a model for future cities and a template for solving some of the problems of our time.