If you're struggling to do business in a tax-burdened economy or just surviving under your definition of an oppressive government, a movement of philanthropists, academics, and investors is working on a very sci-fi, libertarian alternative.
The idea? To launch an independent floating island by 2020. Bankrolled by billionaire PayPal founder
Peter Thiel, the US$50 million project is a pilot program in partnership with the French Polynesian government and plans to include 300 homes off the island of Tahiti and use cryptocurrency to power its economy.
The project is being developed by ‘a diverse global team of marine biologists, nautical engineers, aquaculture farmers, maritime attorneys, medical researchers, security personnel, investors, environmentalists, and artists’ called the
Seasteading Institute. The cryptocurrency side of the venture is being run by
Blue Frontiers Ltd, which is selling tokens dubbed the ‘
Varyon’ (VAR).
While the speculative details and proposition of this new currency remain to be seen, if at all, the conceptual use-case that a self-governing, self-sufficient, cryptocurrency powered ecosystem holds is potentially quite remarkable.
“If you don’t want to live under a particular government, people will be able to just take their house and float away to another island,” says Nathalie Mezza-Garcia of Blue Frontiers. Mezza-Garcia said she also believes tech start-ups should start heading to Tahiti.
The company behind this venture was founded by the executive team and ambassadors of the Seasteading Institute, with Theil a notable founder. Blue Frontiers claim that these new floating islands, also called ‘Seasteads’, will offer a decentralised form of governance, bringing fairer decision-making in the place of overly centralised institutions. They say the islands will also provide a tangible solution to the threat of rising sea level and overcrowded cities.
Furthermore, so-called ‘SeaZones’ will become
Special Economic Zones, creating legal and regulatory frameworks within territorial waters of host nations. Whilst this particular development will not directly affect speculative cryptocurrency investments, it surely demonstrates the use-cases and potentially transformational change that distributed ledger technology and cryptocurrencies can bring.
The pilot island is expected to be completed by 2022.