Criminal cases, security, and sovereignty remain under the full jurisdiction of Tanzania.
On 71 hectares of the Fumba Peninsula on the western coast of Zanzibar, the construction of an entire alternative reality — Dunia Cyber City — will soon begin. This project, personally approved by the President of Zanzibar, Hussein Ali Mwinyi, in November 2024, is positioned as a physical embodiment of the concept of a "network state" and the core of a local special digital economic zone.
The idea of a "network state" was formulated in 2022 by crypto enthusiast Balaji Srinivasan. Its essence is the creation of global online communities of like-minded individuals who gradually acquire physical territory and their own institutions, seeking diplomatic recognition. Dunia Cyber City is an attempt to materialize this concept in collaboration with a traditional state. The project is being implemented by OurWorld with direct support from the Zanzibar Communication and ICT Infrastructure Agency (ZICTIA).
The city is envisioned as a hybrid ecosystem. Between 5,000 and 7,000 people will reside here permanently, but its true scale lies in the tens and hundreds of thousands of "digital residents." These are remote workers, entrepreneurs, and companies from around the world who will be able to legally register in this jurisdiction without physically relocating. For them, Zanzibar offers the following conditions: a zero corporate tax rate for companies for the first ten years, a personal income tax of just 5% for digital nomads, and 15% for physical residents. There are no taxes on wealth or capital gains. All tax revenues will be directed to the Zanzibar budget, and income from real estate sales will be reinvested in local startups.
The technological foundation of the city is built on blockchain. A key partner is the decentralized project Threefold, in which Balaji Srinivasan himself has invested. Property rights to land and real estate in Dunia will be tokenized — that is, represented as digital certificates (similar to NFTs) that can be freely bought and sold on cryptocurrency exchanges. The management of everyday processes — company registrations, tax reporting, dispute resolution — will be carried out through an automated digital platform developed by OurWorld in collaboration with Tools for the Commons, which has experience creating similar systems for special economic zones in Honduras and Brazil.
However, Dunia Cyber City does not claim secession, meaning it does not seek to exit the state. Criminal cases, security, and sovereignty remain under the full jurisdiction of Zanzibar as part of Tanzania.
The founders of OurWorld — former Apple employee Florian Fournier and crypto enthusiast Christophe De Spigeler — are actively raising $70 million to begin construction of the first phase. Their goal is to increase the project's value from the current land valuation of $70 million to $1 billion within two years. According to them, about 100 individuals and 30 companies have already received digital resident status in Dunia Cyber City.
