Research
Reports
Independent analysis at the intersection of artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, and Southeast Asia. No paid placements — only the thinking holds.
Forest City: From $100 Billion Ghost Town to Special Financial Zone
Built as a $100 billion Chinese dream on reclaimed sand, Forest City spent years as Southeast Asia's most embarrassing real estate failure. Now Malaysia's King and Prime Minister are betting that zero-tax incentives and a new Special Financial Zone designation can turn a ghost city into a rival to Singapore's family office ecosystem.
The AI Leapfrog: How Southeast Asia Will Skip the Cloud Era
Much like mobile technology allowed Southeast Asia to bypass the desktop internet era, a new leapfrog is underway — this time in artificial intelligence. We examine why SEA is uniquely positioned to adopt AI-native applications at a speed that will surprise the West.
The Johor-Singapore SEZ: Asia's Most Ambitious Cross-Border Experiment
Signed in January 2025, the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone is the most significant bilateral economic agreement between Malaysia and Singapore in decades. Spanning 3,500 square kilometers and targeting eleven sectors, it is already reshaping investment flows, triggering a data-center supercycle, and redefining what a cross-border economic zone can be.
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Balaji's Bet: Building a Nation State at the Edge of Singapore
In 2022, Balaji Srinivasan published a book describing how to start a new country using cryptocurrency and digital coordination. In 2024, he bought an island two kilometers from Singapore and started building one. The Network School at Forest City is either the most interesting social experiment in Southeast Asia or an elaborate thought experiment made physical — and the distinction may matter less than you think.
DeFi's Real Stronghold: Why ASEAN Will Lead the Next Crypto Cycle
Decentralised finance is not primarily a story about financial innovation for its own sake — it is a story about access. Nowhere is access more scarce, and therefore more valuable, than in Southeast Asia. We make the case that ASEAN will be the defining geography of the next DeFi cycle.
Tokenizing Southeast Asia: From Rice Paddies to Real-World Assets
Real-world asset tokenization is generating enormous excitement globally, but the analysis is almost entirely Western-centric. Southeast Asia's unique asset mix — agricultural land, informal real estate, infrastructure projects, and natural resources — creates a tokenization opportunity that is both larger and structurally distinct from that of developed markets.