The former Coinbase CTO signed a five-year agreement with Kazakhstan's AI ministry just one day after Malaysia revoked the school's business license.
Balaji Srinivasan’s experimental education commune for techno-optimists lasted in Malaysia right up until the moment it didn’t. The former Coinbase CTO’s Network School, a residential program built around digital nomadism and startup culture, had its business license revoked by Malaysian authorities on July 21, 2026, forcing operations to cease the following day.
Within 24 hours, Srinivasan had already signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development.
From Forest City to the steppe #
The Network School had been running out of Forest City, a largely unfinished mega-development in Johor, Malaysia, just across the strait from Singapore.
The program operated around what Srinivasan calls the “Learn, Burn, Earn, Fun” model, with daily bounties and skill-building sessions.
A social media video, which was deliberately vague about the school’s exact location, caught the attention of Malaysian social media users. What followed was public scrutiny, regulatory attention, and ultimately a crackdown that shuttered the doors. Malaysian authorities determined the school was violating local regulations and pulled the business license.
Kazakhstan rolls out the welcome mat #
The new agreement with Kazakhstan spans five years. It includes provisions for hackathons, conferences, and innovation programs.
Kazakhstan’s International Financial Centre in Astana already operates under common law, a deliberate move to attract Western capital and tech ventures.
The Kazakhstan agreement was announced on July 22, 2026, the same day operations ceased in Malaysia.
The network state theory meets reality #
Srinivasan’s 2022 book “The Network State” laid out a vision for cloud-first communities that could eventually gain diplomatic recognition. The Network School was supposed to be a stepping stone toward that vision: a physical proof of concept showing that communities organized around shared values and internet-native principles could function in meatspace.
What this means for crypto investors #
The direct market impact here has been essentially zero. There’s no Network School token, no associated DeFi protocol, and no price action to speak of.
For investors evaluating crypto projects with physical-world components, the Malaysia-to-Kazakhstan arc offers a clear lesson: regulatory risk isn’t just about token classifications and securities law. It extends to any project that needs to exist in a specific place. The five-year MoU with Kazakhstan provides a longer runway than the Network School ever had in Malaysia.
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