Traditionally, a state has been defined by physical territory and the institutions attached to it. Tax systems, laws, currencies, education, communications, and infrastructure—all layered over geographic space to create the framework we call a nation.
But in recent years, a new layer has quietly begun to emerge. It is a realm structured not within physical space but within a computational dimension—an additional space layered atop existing infrastructure. One where the flow of time is not bound by human perception, and where even space-time itself may be transcended.
Just as the cloud now operates above physical data centers. Just as blockchain has been layered on top of the existing internet. If this trajectory continues, we may soon see a structure that resembles a “state overlaid upon the state.”
Currency no longer has to be issued by governments. Data no longer needs to cross borders. Identity no longer depends solely on passports. Communication flows across regulatory regimes.
In this context, functions like information, computation, authentication, currency, and governance—what we once considered the essential operations of a state—are absorbed into higher-order structures. They become meta-layers. And these new structures are not necessarily designed by states.
This trajectory points toward something I would describe as an “overlay state.”
It sits atop existing nations, supplements or overrides legacy institutions, and operates on a new logic. It is governed not by borders, but by protocols. Not by passports, but by keys. Not by laws, but by smart contracts. Not by armies, but by compute resources and cryptographic systems.
The distributed networks now rising around the world under the banner of decentralization may not merely be technical experiments. They may be the early signs of a new kind of sovereignty.
Whether this becomes a new form of state, a corporate construct, or something else entirely—we cannot yet say.
But what I do feel, more strongly each day, is that it is already layering itself over society.