SeeDAO
A Web3 platform and community for the Chinese diaspora, cited by Primavera De Filippi and Felix Beer as one of the clearest proto-Network Nation examples. SeeDAO creates digital spaces for people of Chinese heritage around the world who don’t feel culturally or politically represented by the Chinese state (or by other states in which they reside).
SeeDAO offers community retreats, a social welfare system providing stipends based on need, and governance infrastructure for community decision-making. Crucially, it does not challenge the Chinese state — it exists alongside it as an additional layer of community infrastructure, exactly matching the Network Nations model of overlapping (rather than competitive) sovereignty.
Helena Rong leads the SeeDAO initiative and is the primary voice presenting it in the podcast. SeeDAO demonstrates the Network Nations model in a particularly high-stakes context: building functional community sovereignty for a diaspora that faces significant state power asymmetries.