Alice In Liberland.
The first blockchain country.
A “modern historic obscurity” sits snug on the west bank of the Danube River of Southeastern Europe, a 4.3 mile long island of no man’s land. The artifact of a long-standing border dispute between Croatia and Serbia birthed the now known Liberland.
The parcel of land is sometimes referred to as “Gornja Siga”, which roughly translates to “upper tufa” or upper rock in Croatian, on some maps. However, the land itself is not claimed by Croatia, Serbia, nor any other nation or private entity. Since the Yugoslavian war in 1991, the island has since been unclaimed for decades and became Terra Nullius, a no man’s land.
On April 13, 2015, the incognito teardrop-shaped land was proclaimed by Vit Jedlicka, a 31-year-old Czech politician, formerly as the Free Republic of Liberland. He is part of the Free Citizens Party of the Czech Republic, a party of libertarian views and perceived as “eccentric” by big named media outlets. Jedlicka has received much criticism from the media as he has a history of outspoken anti-EU activism, so many Europeans assume the establishment of Liberland as a stunt of Libertarian paradise.
“No it’s not a protest, from the beginning it was a serious nation-building effort. We decided we will build a country, and this territory was the best fit for it,” said Jelicka in an interview with Finance Magnates, a multi-asset provider on trading news and research.
Liberland itself is placed “amidst a tortuous river where it can be difficult for large boats to navigate and has only been smoothed by a few construction projects” according to journalist Gideon Lewis-Kraus, who traveled to Liberland himself to write a report for the New York Times. The land has no human inhabitants as it is “mosquito-infested” and dull, unstable geography. The land lacks any sort of infrastructure and lies on a floodplain. On the land, there is a house, which has been abandoned for about thirty years or so. The access road from Croatia has been reported to be in bad condition by Czech newspaper Parlamentni Listy. The Danube river is also an international waterway and navigators have free access to the Black Sea.
So, how does it work?
There has also been much criticism by international communities on the way Liberland “fulfills the criteria of legally establishing a state”. According to the Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States reads that in order to be recognized as a state, it must qualify with a permanent population, a defined territory government, and capacity to enter into relations with the other states. On the official website of Liberland, it states that they have qualified as a state; however, the state lacks residents. It also states that the land was “proclaimed with the tacit consent of its parent state Serbia”. Croatia’s initial reaction towards the declaration of Liberland was considered to be a “joke”.
The official motto of Liberland has been established as “To Live and Let Live”, which stands for the ideology of personal and economic freedom Liberland strives for, and the ideals are written and guaranteed by the Constitution.
Besides the strong legal system, the pride of economic freedom has especially gained attention from the global political and advancing technological community, as the land is legally based on Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency.
“Pressure from high taxes and regulations [was] increasing every year…it’s almost impossible to do anything about it,” Jedlicka told Ryan Gorman of Business Insider.
The developing functionality is aimed to power the nation through a blockchain economy, a fully digital ledger that is used to securely buy, store, and trade bitcoin. The system ensures citizenship via digital contracts and passports. Jedlicka, also a former economist, planned an issue of their own coin, called Merit, on the country’s third anniversary on April 13, 2017. All digital taxpayers, who make bitcoin donations, will receive Merit, and will effectively award them a stake in the country. Liberland initially planned to have no mandatory taxes but since has turned to lower taxes and regulation. Jedlicka, who worked a few years as a financial market analyst in Czech, believed that it was easier to start a new country than trying to fix an existing one, according to The Telegraph. The issuing of the tangible Merit itself has seemed to be silently brushed under the rug, as the latest updates from the website only highlight a congratulatory letter from Jedlicka to the Croatian president.
OK. The real question is, how can I become a citizen?
“We have the busiest immigration office in the world” said Jedlicka humorously to Times magazine.
Though the “Utopian tax-free micronation” has somewhat vanished from the media’s spotlight, the president is determined to grow the nation’s ambassadors. His determination has been tracked since 2012 when he dedicated three years in travel to expand his network of potential interests, representatives, and citizens of Liberland. In the first year alone, nearly half a million individuals applied for citizenship digitally. The applications are composed of people of diverse origins, who sought the libertarian views of the land, including that of North Korean defectors to Americans. However, the sovereign state has yet to accept any of these applications, and issue the contracts. What I found particularly disturbing was his response to approximately 12,000 syrian refugees who applied for citizenship, hoping that the country would really bring them a new way of life.
“[Refugees] can build [homes] themselves, but it will be expensive, [refugees] will need a rich sheikh to build it. [Refugees] can contribute, but they can’t say ‘Allahu Akbar’ and blow up the houseboats. You got to be careful with those guys,” said Jedlick when asked about offering a home to Syrians and refugees in an interview with Politico.
Although Liberland has gained much recognition from a number of countries it has somewhat vanished from the media’s spotlight and the minds of the potential citizens, Jedlicka and his team have announced the expansion of offices in Switzerland, Hong Kong, Bangladesh, and even Dubai. Despite the growth of representative offices, the country itself has been left untouched and deserted. The seemingly almost successful development of the country is now stagnated, and the future of Liberland remains in the unknowns seems to have ceased as well. It’s up to you to decide if Liberland was a ‘joke’ all along or a glance at how countries will look like in the future of the digital age.
