Bitcoin Forum

A micronation is an entity that claims to be independent, but is not recognized by other governments, for example: Sealand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand), Empire of Atlantium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Atlantium), Naminara (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namiseom#Naminara_Republic), Kingdom of Lovely (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Lovely#The_Kingdom_of_Lovely), etc. Bitcoin obviously fits the philosophy of independence of micronation founders. We could attempt to entice some of them to adopt or promote Bitcoin somehow, if only as a publicity stunt. A micronation could:

• come up with a customized physical representation of Bitcoin (the same way each European country customize one of the sides of Euro coins)
• declare Bitcoin as its official currency
• peg their currency to Bitcoin
• etc

Relevant links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_micronation_currencies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_micronations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-nation

If this is successful, the next step would be to market Bitcoin to microstates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microstate) which are, contrary to micronations, formally recognized (Liechtenstein, Monaco, etc). But that is, of course, much harder :)

Wirtland ?

Exactly, I agree that Wirtland is really our target of choice. I also believe that more bitcoiners should join Wirtland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirtland_%28micronation%29

Hutt River Province (http://www.hutt-river-province.com/) in West Australia has been going 40 years and is an excellent candidate for this, although it is hard to forgive them that their website is "best viewed on IE 5.5 or better with popups enabled".

Or you embrace it and make it a male only currency ;).  Of course, then the women will want to have it too, so they will have their own underground economy of cockcoins.  And if bitcoin ever crashes and burns, they'll all be fucked.

By the way, I thought maybe it meant something else that was used as slang, but google translate informed me I was mistaken.

bite: noun
cock
prick
knob
rod
dong
peter
pole

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hooray for cockcoins! vive la revolution!
will be fun to spend some. daydreaming ...

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What about a small island nation?

Not necessarily land: http://seasteading.org/

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Why do you think it would be shut down fast, the tax haven? Not necessarily... maybe they would be forced to cooperate concerning people/money from other nations, but no more than the existent tax-havens already are.
And the new nation could be free of all sort of stupid regulations that jam other economies.
Different nations could be created with specific purposes. For example, a nation with no labor laws could succeed in the Mediterranean or maybe west of Portugal, due to the draconian labor laws of Europe in general... a nation with no health regulations could provide decent and cheaper health care to patients from US and so on.

Once the engineering is feasible, you have a total new "startup sector" for nations. Different nations with different political systems could pop up, and the best would survive and grow. If you have time, watch this talk (http://mises.org.br/FileUp.aspx?id=47) done by the creator of the seasteading project. It's quite interesting.

Concerning costs, there are big challenges there, but it may be brought down with some techniques. For example, using concrete instead of steel - heavier, but apparently much less expensive to maintain. Another approach are submarines instead of boats: in the case of a storm, you sink. For larger scales, there are those breakwaters, but that's for a big city only.

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It seems Wirtland is looking into buying some land from Nauru, thus acquiring a formal territory: http://wirtlandinstitute.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-to-sell-square-mile-of-wasteland.html

Cheers,

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If they managed to buy a piece of land on Nauru, I wouldn't mind moving there if it could turn into something like Tribe Wanted (http://www.tribewanted.com/).

Cheers,

One of my dreams is form a small nation, kinda like a indigenous tribe, plainly because I believe it is a better form of government.

But I see that this is almost impossible to be done without war :/

The most feasible plan so far is buy a large farm, remain part of the country where it is located for a while, build a fortress, a army, and only then claim independence (and the likely result will be a bloody war...)

There are also those tax-havens which, due to low taxes, become a very interesting place for investors and entrepreneurs, like Hong-Kong for example. Maybe tax-haven is not the appropriate word in English. I mean "country with very low taxes".
There is also the example of Monaco, where millionaires go to live in order to avoid certain taxes. Their business outside of Monaco keep being taxed, but their personal income and wealth not that much.


The idea of seasteading is that people would move to live there. And by the way, it's not meant to be "for rich only". The idea is to create prosperity for all. Obviously that in the beginning poor people will not be able to afford floating houses, but as times goes by and technology advances, the "ocean tax" becomes smaller, while government taxes quite the contrary...


What armies do places like Monaco, Lichtenstein, Singapore and others have?


Maybe, maybe not. I think it's something worth trying. Way easier to achieve more freedom through this path than through elections, anyway.

An alternative to avoid this danger, at least in the beginning while these floating-nations are not internationally recognized, is to use a convenience flag. This limits your freedom but not that much, since there are small governments out there who make this "convenience-flag" business an important source of revenue. Once the city is big enough, it may abandon the convenience flag and declare sovereignty.
Take the example of the Women on Waves boat. It has already been forbid to dock on ports of conservative nations, but it was never military attacked.

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I'm not talking about tax evasion, I'm talking about places with very low taxes.


Estimates say that a concrete submarine with living space equivalent to a 60m2 apartment could cost something between $60k to $100k to build. It's not that expensive.

The challenge is for sure to come up with a "business plan" that could sustain a village and eventually grow to a city. White-collar labor is for sure a possibility, and there are others. "Medical tourism" is a big possibility if you consider existent medical laws in most countries. Drugs/prostitution/gambling tourism too, a sort of improved Las Vegas. Anyway, there are several possibilities. And the big deal is to start. Once the first steps are taken, more industries and services would be attracted by the economic freedom of the place.


These treaties don't concern what happens in the other country. It seems you see the seasteading idea as something to run away from prosecutions in your home land. It is not it. If all you want is to run away, just go to Rio de Janeiro. :D


Well, I see many potential benefits, yes. You should watch the talk I linked you to.

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Not if you have nukes.  A rich bitcoiner could pick them up off the black market for $20 000 000 or so purely as a defensive measure. Self defence ftw.

That last post was a joke btw  :)

http://freestateproject.org/ (http://freestateproject.org/) or http://www.freetownproject.com/ (http://www.freetownproject.com/) are possible projects worth following.

The other option is the freemen on the land and others like the Amish people. Theres a few indian tribes that are independent nations withint the US. "Nation" means family not the corrupted word the states use. http://freelakotabank.com/ (http://freelakotabank.com/) bills itself as the "world's only non-reserve, non-fractional bank."

Cool concept.  Does anyone know if the Free Lakota Bank is for US citizens only?

Cheers,

Arise Chikun! Sealand may be making bitcoin the official currency! http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1cgo6n/iama_im_prince_michael_of_the_principality_of/c9gavep?context=2

I wonder today if that's a good thing.
Of course, kudos to Sealand's prince for even thinking about it.
But, I mean, would it be good for bitcoiners? If Bitcoin becomes the official currency of a country, wouldn't legislation about buying/selling/holding it automatically become harsher in most other countries?
Just as an example, wouldn't Argentina's capital controls automatically apply, making TradeHill plans (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-16/bitcoin-dreams-endure-to-savers-crushed-by-cpi-argentina-credit.html) impossible to start?
I'd like to be wrong on that one, but I'm not sure.

They would have to take Sealand seriously first. I personally like bitcoin because no one is forced to use it.

Hahahahaha.

You've read too many fantasy books.

We should convince our representatives to bring a motion, to legalize bitcoin as a national alternative currency. Then in time,our great representatives will have their say about bitcoin as global currency at UN,and then


Target achieved one earth,one currency.    :)

Sealand should totally adopt Bitcoin.

Then become a semi-legal micro-nation with a datacenter based economy.

On a converted repurposed mishmash of once ocean-traveling ships, while the polar ice caps melt at an ever-alarming rate.

Holy crap.... it must be 'the future' because that straight-up sounds like a plot from a '80s cyberpunk novel :) 

convince a real small nation to use them and we are talking
which of course wouldn't happen due to states desiring absolute control over currency

Whoa, that's crazy. I e-mailed Sealand and recommended they adopt bitcoin as a currency a few months ago.

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

What armies do places like Monaco, Lichtenstein, Singapore and others have?

Spy armies. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0926/focus-monaco-prince-albert-spy-legal-falkenberg.html
http://www.eringerreport.com/
http://www.eringerreport.com/2012/10/monaco-spymaster-rules-1.html