Bitcoin Forum

What would you say to a group effort to purchase a micronation as base for bitcoin. Billionares could fly in like an bank branch for bitcoin. Because we are all going to be billionaires with bitcoin :)

I have a billion Satoshis already. :P

At the moment, I don't think there are enough bitcoins, nor enough valuation to them, to purchase a micronation. Though I'd love to do it myself.

Where is the micronation-market? I'm interested to see the prices, maybe daytrade them or something. :)

-MarkM-

There is no micronation market.

You have to purchase some land then put together a private security force to defend its sovereignty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealand

TPB tried to buy this country, but the world feared them and refused to sell.

You could buy a few barges, string them together somewhere in the middle of the ocean and call it bitcoinland, I guess...

That's if you can defend them.

Some people are trying that already. (http://seasteading.org/)

if you tried to tie some barges together, your in international waters, anything can happen. it would not only cost a fortune to live there, but you risk being blown up by the scared US gov, pirates and such too.

Well lets start with virtual nations (http://sourceforge.net/p/galacticmilieu/home/Home/) then. :)

-MarkM-

I think the best solution to this problem is to convince a gang or group of gangs to move to a rural area of the US and succeed from the union. It would be very beneficial for them to do so because they would create the laws. if it worked, it could spread, granted the government does not crush it.

Some problems, it would initially be a very violent society, murder and rape would be rampant in the area. but over time i could see that break down when normal people got in.

Buying a center with decentralized currency? It just doesn't make any sense.

neither does living in a country that does not protect you.

Paypal's Peter Theil is a high profile supporter of The Seasteading Insitute.

Just as Bitcoin is distributed and enables the creation of a shadow economy that can quietly coexist alongside the various "legitimate" currencies of the world, shouldn't the proposed Bitcoin nation be distributed and exist as a shadow nation quietly occupying the same space as all of the "legitimate" nations in which Bitcoin participants live? If a person wishes to opt out of the traditional nations and their economies, why should they need to go somewhere else to do that as long as they can remain unobtrusive enough to avoid detrimental attention from the traditional government(s) that are in control in their local area?

I suggest that the nation of Bitlandia (or whatever it might be called) exists anywhere and everywhere that its citizens choose to live and travel.

Erm -- a lot of you are confusing a small nation with a micronation.

A micronation doesn't require land.

Right now, I am an emperor of a tiny micronation, am working hard on converting my micronation into a full fledged nation.

It's been stated that a nation requires 3 things:

A government, a permanent population, and land.

Land is pretty easy to obtain, a private island. That requires but one things, money.
Second is a permanent population. Not that hard to obtain, just need a good leader.
Third and final thing -- a government. Without a proper government, you can have a permanent population -- people would leave.

Anyways, I planned on having a virtual currency, however, the foundation differed from bitcoin dramatically. I was planning on have 'credits' directly backed by gold, proportionality. I was thinking 1000 credits to each ounce of gold. Meaning in theory, you'd be buying an selling stuff with 'virtual gold coins'. Obviously, there's thousands of flaws in this system, but it seemed to me like it would be something nice to have.

Anyways, just my 2 cents :P


Quote from wiki:
"In international law, the Montevideo Convention on the Right and Duties of States sets down the criteria for statehood in article 1: The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronation#Legitimacy

Or you could call it "The Raft" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash).

I suppose you've never heard of Mark 48 torpedoes. You really think Uncle Sam would tolerate a floating money-laundering tax-evasion platform?

how would it look if the US just torpedoed 50 innocent people on a whim.

The US kills more than 40 innocent people with predator drones on a monthly basis.  I'm sure they could spin it so the victims wouldn't appear so innocent. 

you would have to be very public about it, and always have cameras streaming live, that way if the US did try something the whole world would see it. my hope would be that it would turn out like Tienanmen square, but with the US actually being disciplined with trade sanctions. but i never see that happening with it being one of the most powerful entity in the world.

Why push Bitcon to buy a micronation, when you can just let micronations to buy some bitcoins.

Bitcoin would be a logical choice of currency for a micronation/seasted, unless their leaders fancy themselves as little kings and cannot pass on opportunity to mint own fiat.

A nice Litmus test of sorts for a micronation.

"backed by gold", Ah, this is directly opposed to "virtual" concept.

bitcoins: weapons of massless destruction

The gold would be represented in virtual form. Also, directly backed.
Say I had 10 ounces of gold in my coffers, only 10,000 credits would exist. The credits would all be virtual, as in 'credit'.

Virtual items can be backed by physical items. Take for example PayPal. The virtual money you send around is normally backed by real money.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIqA7RMHsHo

from

http://seasteading.org/

as poster eariler

There one step from "backed by gold" to "fractional reserve", as history has demonstrated so many times already.

You don't need US weapons to topple a micronation.  Tonga's hardly a world power but it was easily able to assert its claim over the Republic of Minerva.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Minerva

personally - just as an exercise - i think the way to go is:

find an island nation (somewhere in micronesia, for example) that knows its days are numbered by sea level rise due to global warming - and they're very aware of that.  a nation like that already has recognized sovereignty.  get them to sell you one of their shortly-to-be underwater islands, with the proviso that you are both granted independence and guaranteed they will recognize you as a sovereign nation at the UN.  they need money to relocate their population.  they'll do it, for enough:  high tens of millions i'd imagine.

then just start building out your little island - and building it higher.  if you've got something that's stable on the ocean floor, that's really all you need.

Uhh, well let me know when you have the rape gangs under control and I might move in.

Again, you can watch drone strikes on your evening news and read about them in stories Every Single Day.

Backlash?

Israel boarded a boat illegally and assassinated activists. Once again streamed nearly live.

Backlash?

Collateral Damage video - you know Wikileaks first newsmaker?

Backlash?

This is essentially what happened with Minerva.


Even if Tonga hadn't asserted a claim over the Minerva reefs (a claim disputed by Fiji), nothing bound other countries in the region to recognise the Republic of Minerva as an independent, sovereign nation.

There are literally tens of thousands of islands in the Pacific and many of them are for sale, but they're not likely to ever be for sale "no strings attached" - especially not in such a volatile region where fledging nations trying to assert their independence with the support of the international community still often fail.

The US public is more worried about getting their Social Security checks and x (http://www.google.com/trends) than innocent lives i guess.

Two words: jamming devices. Worked very well for the Israeli government.

Micro-nations with modern infrastructure (service provider with undersea cable, 3G, airports, hospital, paved roads, etc.) would be prohibitively expensive. Also we are a free web-forum, not an organization.

Buying a private island and attempting to secede from a larger nation would only result in them sending their military out to reclaim the land. Buying a micro nation advanced enough to host an internet based currency would be terribly expensive, i am with Vladimir its probably better to get a already established micro nation to adopt Bitcoin instead of having Bitcoin adopt a micro nation.

Well they could fire those things from submarines and nobody would see what happen until things go skyhigh.
And they could always spin it thus...

"Breaking news:  Power generator incident on Bitopia destroys new nation"

Or maybe

"We have credible intelligence reports that these are terrorists harbouring Weapons of Monetary Destructions"

It's secede (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/secede), not succeed (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/succeed). And regarding the idea of pressing some helpful rape gangs into service to seize a rural area, the US has historically been quite uncooperative about attempts to secede from the union.

If only it could be both!

 :D

Could always buy a decommissioned cruise ship. Big enough to be a city, plenty of tech on board, and can move around the water. Main problems would be initial cost, protection from pirates, and power generation (maybe buy a nuke reactor from Iran, too?)

Maybe get some green/renewal energy tech group onboard as well? Since the intention isn't to sail it anywhere, perhaps a towed solar panel array or some kind of current driven turbine? Or start fishing and converting them into both food and biofuel (including from that which the humans processed first) :D

Why not just... (http://dresdencodak.com/2005/06/22/rupert-and-hubert/)