Suffocating under your government’s strict business and monetary policies? Head to the seas. To be more precise, create an island of your own that has its own government and uses cryptocurrency as its main tender.
The oceans are the solution to a heavily polluted planet and policies that harm business growth. The startups BlueFrontiers and Seasteading (a clever pun on “homesteading”) are creating man-made islands that will support over 300 homes and have their own forms of government and currency.
Cryptocurrency is becoming a first-choice currency for utopia builders like Elon Musk, who need an efficient, non-physical tender.
According to Blue Frontier’s website:
Our mission is to further the long term-growth of the seasteading movement. Our current focus is to enable the first seasteads by researching critical engineering, legal and business challenges, increasing public awareness, and building a core seasteading community.
The project has chosen the Polynesian Islands as the starting point. Nathalie Mezza-Garcia, a researcher at Blue Frontiers, spoke with CNBC about the location.
“There is significance to this project being trialed in the Polynesian Islands. This is the region where land is resting on coral and will disappear with rising sea levels,” Mezza-Garcia said.
The initial project will serve as a testing grounds for future floating systems.
“Once we can see how this first island works, we will have a proof of concept to plan for islands to house climate refugees,” she said.
Blue Frontiers has also launched an ICO for a token to raise capital. As stated,
Blue Frontiers is planning to use the proceeds of the sale to expand its ecosystem and create SeaZones and seasteads, and will only accept Varyon (VAR) for its products and services.
So much for a completely open governance framework, since the project and white paper aren’t open to other cryptocurrencies for trade.
The seafasting project has been mentioned in Nature, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.
Though seafasting sounds like it’s come straight out of a sci-fi novel, it could potentially butt heads with governments. As CCN reported, the crackdown on cryptocurrencies probably won’t conviently ignore man-made islands. However, the project could take notes on measures that the Caribbean islands has taken to encourage crypto business. Their pro-bitcoin stance has attracted to the islands a utopia of their own, with bitcoin whales moving in, startups, and venture capitol.
Smaller governments with regulation flexibility (such as on island territories) are in a unique position for making easier regulations for crpyto businesses when larger countries have a lot of political and central bank bureaucracies that hinder progress.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
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