Roger Ver - a.k.a bitcoin Jesus - and Olivier Janssens are trying to transform a long-sought after libertarian ideal into a reality. As CoinTelegraph reports, the pair has announced that they’re in the process of creating the first independent state governed by libertarian values – and they’ve invited any like-minded individuals to join them.
The pair said Friday that they’re working with a team of lawyers to try and figure out how to legally create their own independent country. Ver is a longtime advocate of bitcoin who surrendered his US citizenship and became a citizen of St. Kitts and Nevis a few years back.
The pair have yet to disclose the location, nor has indicated what entry standards would be required.
The country, which would be reminiscent of Ayn Rand’s Galtian paradise, is intended to be a place where those who reject governmental controls and seek to maintain libertarian freedoms can gather and promote a truly free society.
CoinTelegraph reports that the locations being evaluated include areas that are safe and conflict-free, but also enjoy proximity to economic centers in the US, Europe, and Asia, while also being accessible by water. The team is hoping to offer a stable government with substantial national debt a way to eliminate some of that debt with a land lease to FreeSociety. On its website, the team says they’ve started preliminary talks with governments and interest “is much higher than initially expected.”
While Ver told CoinTelegraph that the country “isn’t an ICO”, it’s unclear how the FreeSociety team would acquire the money needed to purchase land upon which to build their sovereign nation.
Learn more at https://t.co/btZyCQzXlk https://t.co/wlUJedYE9V
— Roger Ver (@rogerkver) September 21, 2017
Of course, Ver & Co. aren’t the first to attempt this. In 2008, billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel launched an initiative to develop a floating city, called a seastead, that would serve as a permanent, politically autonomous settlement. He invested some $1.7 million in The Seasteading Institute, and resigned from its board in 2011. Back in February, he told the New York Times’s Maureen Dowd. However, it appears the Seasteading Institute plans to soldier on without Thiel.
According to Business Insider, the group recently met with officials in French Polynesia, an island chain located in the South Pacific, and discussed plans to develop a seastead off its coast. If things go as planned, the institute might break ground as early as 2017.