By Richard Martin, The Strategic Code
In the later Middle Ages, a quiet revolution unfolded across Europe—not through battles or decrees, but through trade, autonomy, and local governance. Cities like Antwerp, Amsterdam, Lübeck, Hamburg, and Bruges emerged as centers of commerce and coordination. These weren’t empires or monarchies. They were urban republics, often granted charters or privileges that allowed them to self-regulate trade, law, and taxation.
They connected to each other across regions through alliances like the Hanseatic League, forming resilient commercial networks based on contracts, reputation, and standard practices. These cities weren’t sovereign in the modern sense, but they operated independently enough to resist external interference and protect internal coherence.
Today, we may be witnessing a parallel shift. Bitcoin and the stacked systems built on top of it (like the Lightning Network and other open protocols) are creating new forms of non-territorial coordination. These systems aren’t cities, but they perform many of the same functions. They enable trusted exchange. They operate independently of state authority. And they depend on rules, not rulers.
Commercial Autonomy Before the State
Between the 11th and 16th centuries, a growing class of townspeople—merchants, guildsmen, artisans—began to organize life on new terms. Unlike the feudal world of lords and vassals, these communities built their social contracts around:
Commerce and mutual self-interest
Common legal frameworks and dispute resolution
Chartered freedoms from external control
Shared infrastructure for accounting, contracts, and logistics
The Flemish cities—especially Ghent and Bruges—were early examples, thriving on textile production and long-distance trade. Later, Antwerp became a major financial center. In the Low Countries, many towns gained relative independence from both monarchs and the church.
In the Baltic and North Sea, the Hanseatic League connected dozens of cities in a common commercial framework. Each member remained autonomous but agreed on standards and defended shared interests through diplomacy and economic pressure.
The Italian city-states—notably Florence, Genoa, and Venice—also developed complex commercial institutions. Venice in particular became famous for its maritime power, legal innovation, and system of layered councils. But its evolution into an empire makes it a partial analogue. The northern cities remained closer to the ideal of sustained non-sovereign commercial autonomy.
Bitcoin as an Engineered System of Constraint
Bitcoin is not a polity. It doesn’t legislate, adjudicate, or enforce laws. But like the commercial networks of the past, it enables exchange, security, and coordination in ways that reduce reliance on centralized authority.
It achieves this by:
Enforcing monetary rules through protocol, not fiat
Enabling final settlement without intermediaries
Operating globally and voluntarily
Withstanding censorship, seizure, and inflation
Its strength comes from self-imposed constraint. The rules—hard-capped supply, proof-of-work consensus, transparent and verifiable history—are the system. They do not bend based on who is in charge. Like the legal frameworks of medieval trading cities, Bitcoin’s protocol creates predictability and neutrality, which in turn make participation rational.
Networks on Top of Bitcoin
The Lightning Network allows users to transact instantly and cheaply using Bitcoin. Other systems—like Fedimint for federated custody or Nostr for decentralized communication—layer expressive and functional capabilities on top of Bitcoin’s monetary base.
These systems resemble the intercity networks of the Hanseatic era:
Voluntary coordination across semi-independent nodes
Shared technical standards
Local control with global interoperability
Resilience through decentralization
They’re not sovereign, but they provide functional autonomy. Each node or user can act independently yet benefits from network participation.
Constraint as Design, Not Rebellion
Merchant cities weren’t revolutionary in the modern sense. They didn’t seek to overthrow kings; they generated space within or beside sovereign structures. Similarly, Bitcoin isn’t a rebellion. It’s an engineered alternative, a system that works differently and offers different guarantees.
This is what makes it parasovereign. It doesn’t exercise authority over people or territory, but it limits what sovereigns can do, especially in the domain of money.
A New Layer of Order
What emerges is not a digital empire or a new sovereign. It’s a layer of order grounded in protocols and participation. You don’t have to ask permission to join the Bitcoin network. You only have to follow the rules. This simple fact creates a new basis for trust, exchange, and institutional formation.
The implications are not utopian. But they are structural:
Opting out of inflation and capital controls
Creating verifiable monetary history
Enabling economic coordination without central intermediaries
This resembles the role played by commercial law, double-entry bookkeeping, and city charters in the emergence of early capitalism.
Conclusion: Remembering the Free Cities
The rise of Bitcoin does not mean the end of the state. But it does recall a historical moment when non-sovereign systems enabled new forms of autonomy, prosperity, and coordination.
Just as Antwerp, Lübeck, and Amsterdam once helped build the modern world by linking people through trade and shared rules, Bitcoin links people through code and consensus.
It is not the same. But it plays a similar role.
Not a kingdom. Not a rebellion.
A republic of constraints—by design, not decree.
About Richard
Strategic advisor, theorist, and builder of interpretive systems. I write about sovereignty, power, the individual, and the architecture of human action.
© 2025 Richard Martin