The New Wave of Crypto Colonialism | Cryptoland

Welcome to the land of

crypto

currencies. I am Krishna undervolu. Today it's all about the blockchain utopia. Many early adopters of

crypto

currencies are getting really rich, but for the diehards, cryptocurrencies are about more than making money; It is an idea that today's governments should stay out of regulating currencies. and it is a way for some of them to build their own government vices. Matthew Castle headed to Eastern Europe to witness the third annual Floating Man festival, where a group of utopians have gathered to make their dreams come true on the Danube. Thank you. It is an honor that you know that we can have this ceremony.

I think this is a big step towards building liberalism, and that's what we're here for, and you know, I think it's not just about building physical works, but also something spiritual. In fact, this ceremony is a celebration. a nation that the rest of the world does not recognize is real, but to everyone here it is not only real, but represents the future of their shared interests, libertarianism and cryptocurrencies, and this fire is part of an entire festival dedicated to it , so let this seal the success of this festival and make this, I would say, the first larger event that will grow each year.

Come and join us for the big party on the beaches of Liverpool. We are here in Serbia, right next to the border with Croatia, where. Preparations are underway for the third annual Floating Man festival, attended by libertarians and cryptocurrency enthusiasts from around the world who have come here to discuss the future of a small, disputed and uninhabited piece of land they call the region. of Liberland. country Yugoslavia, but when it broke away in the 1990s, a small island escaped and remained unclaimed forever. In 2015, a Czech citizen named Lika planted a flag on the island and declared it a new independent nation. lieberland, can you give us an idea?

What this Festival is about, I think it's really the focus on the basics of the liberal and constitutional debate, you know, we, the blockchain, govern the local settlements so that the labor land functions as a state, that is the main purpose, what is the common denominator among the people here is what makes a liberlander a liberlander. People who believe in freedom and want to start something new. They are a little fed up with the existing systems. They understand that you know that it is much easier to start new things than to fix something. the existing political system, people from anywhere in the world can apply for citizenship on the lieberland website and can come here to share their latest opinions on vaccine taxes and, of course, cryptocurrencies.

Today I'll be Charlotte and I'll introduce a crazy anarchist and I'll explain. why I like dark markets and what is cryptoanarchy and how it can be used in daily life and how I think it brings us freedom we really don't have diseases the body works for our protection as excited as its citizens could be about the future of lieberland as a real country it is extremely uncertain, something that hasn't stopped people like Susanna ushnarova, a Bitcoin miner who wants to one day be a lieberland ambassador to you and many others here, lieberland is a dream, but it's just that you know it's very far.

Becoming a recognized state for you is just a dream, but for me it is real. I know we want to change the world and we want to change something. How do you want to change the world? We would like to build like maybe a new Dubai here maybe more. that Dubai maybe we will build something like uh you will transfer us to orbit directly from here so my dream is to have a hotel in orbit and everything will be paid for with Bitcoins. The hotel in orbit is a nice room and will. It happens, I promise you, do you think you have to be a little crazy to be a citizen of Lieberland? we are all crazy ideas, proud foreign states, it was not founded with the Force, but it was found to be quite financial backing specifically from people who made fortunes with early investments in Bitcoin.

So the plan is to use cryptocurrency for everything in Liberland. Hello, I would like a coffee please, yes we are just cryptocurrencies. We accept Bitcoin in Lightning, Litecoin or Monero, we do not accept imposed currency. by the state and we accept currency that is used by people because they want to because someone tells them so although you are forcing me to use it right now to have a coffee, aren't you okay? You are free to buy or not. of us, so no one tells you that you buy here, so I just completed my first transaction using cryptocurrency, yes exactly, wow strange feeling, hmm, it's not just simple purchases.

Liberlanders want to use cryptocurrency blockchain technology to run the country, so all the key institutions Liberland wants to take over. Everything will run on an immutable system, so how do you want to take this cryptocurrency technology and apply it to governance? Well, we're using it to vote liberal, so it's immutable, we're using it for our justice system, our Congress will do that. our Senate will run and you will be able to do all the things you need to do as a citizen. Can you give me a concrete example of how that would work like something I know in the United States, how would it work in Liberland using blockchain technology?

There would be no discussion about the results of the world as there was in the United States. Basically, everyone can make sure that no one cheated in the election. The same thing is that he is getting involved within Congress. The Berlin Congress will also use the same technology. Explain the idea behind merit tokens and how you plan to use them in Liberland's government. If you pay taxes, you get merits. I think it's a good name because of the fact that you've supported it. your country and these merits can be used to vote, so let me clarify this, the more taxes I pay, the more tokens I will receive.

Yes, isn't it unfair to give more power to the people with the most money in the system? I think it's a lot. It's fairer than trying to give everyone the same number of votes because that seems to be a fundamental part of most Western democracies, the idea of ​​one man or one person having one vote. Yes, you don't agree with that. I think it is fundamentally wrong if you pay. 50 million dollars in taxes you still have a right to vote and that is one of the things that is a little broken in the systems in which we live.

It is very important to do so that the majority of society cannot dictate to the minority, especially the minority. who really paid taxes and made the country possible. Liverpool has many elements of a real nation, a flag, a motto, an anthem, even its own wine, they also have architects who imagine the future of the island, a technological metropolis that few cities rival. in the world but perhaps their biggest problem this is not lieberland lieberland is a flood plain a few miles away with no infrastructure and the croatian border patrol will arrest anyone who goes there but the threat of arrest was not going to stop these lieberlanders The stirring climax of the festival floated towards the island that gave many their first glimpse of their new self-proclaimed Homeland.

Sinking, you know, and a sinking ship wouldn't stop them right now either. Great, the president of Liverpool is going to put us on these boats. and we're going to go visit the little island in the Danube River that he claims as Liberland, the new country, let's go well, you know what you're doing, you know how to drive a boat, where are we now? "That Croatia is fine, so that's Croatia, that's Serbia. It must be difficult to build a nation that you need a speedboat to access. Still it's much easier than starting a country, for example, in the middle of the Ocean Atlantic.

True, this is only a 10-minute boat ride. We are fast enough to reach around 70 kilometers per hour in Israel, but a pioneer ship had a journey that was far from easy. We have some Libra. Landers stranded here, uh, we have a paddle. Do you need an extra paddle? So I think we'll do it. I have to get you guys back to that beach over there, foreigner. we have to find out why it doesn't work. Let's try the boat near the promise that the colonizers found on the Croatian border guard, hey, we have the police, police, here, here, so Vic, can you describe what's there. happening now?

It seems we have the situation we need, please talk to them, are they trying to make us stop here? No no. I want to talk to them okay we just arrived in lieberland and now they're stopping us uh for uh Croatia we're not border they're not stopping us they're not actually stopping us it's okay I'm just saying hello okay so we're not We met with the Croatian authorities, they sometimes give you a hard time when you try to get to Lieberland. Well, they're protecting Liberline pretty well. I appreciate it. Are they protecting in the sense of protecting the safety of The neighbors Landers are protecting in the sense of trying to prevent you from getting there.

Well, they're actually doing both at the same time. That's the fun part. This boa, this green boa and that sign is a Liverpool border. We are entering Liverpool. Now I have entered the countries Yes, this is Riverland Yes, by the way, actually this part is dedicated to the Neverland cemetery where my ancestors are birds. What do you mean we had a ceremony? In reality, you actually took your ancestors. remains and I buried them here, okay Susanna, as one of lieberland's newest residents, newest citizens, how does it feel to see lieberland for the first time? rent an apartment, yeah, I guess I'm here, so quite a while ago there was a tough guy from the local police and he said: you know, liberal and it's just an imagination and I said that all countries are rituals Concepts that are nothing more than imaginary Concepts that we are creating in our heads.

I know I think it's kind of a morality tale of the liberal right, and of course the more people believe in that cause, the more powerful that cause is. I truly believe that the Constitution we have drawn up has combined the best. elements of existing constitutions with the best element of blockchain technology, we are defining the future of free countries on this planet, obviously lieberland is just an example of people becoming crypto rich and getting a little ahead of what they can dream of , but they are It's not wrong that nation states are imaginary, it's just that whatever they replace them with runs the risk of having the same problems.

Motherboard's Edward Angueso Jr and urban researcher Jillian Crandall will be joining me to talk about how that might be happening, thanks to both of you for joining me, obviously. lieberland is something that is also happening in the real world if you want to talk about libreland not being the real world but tell me about lieberland Jillian what is it and what are these people looking for and what does it mean? Well, my understanding is that this is essentially a crypto-anarcho-capitalist nation made real, uh, as I understand it, it also arises from the founding of a very explicit tax haven, in the EU, where people who call themselves techno-libertarians, right-wing libertarians, they join together and form their own community in lieberland it's not one vote, one person, it's like how many cryptocurrencies you have is equal to how many votes you have, the best reading of that in my opinion is that that's how it works in the world anyway, Like you have a lot of money.

You can control politics in a way that you or I, who don't have a lot of money, can anyway and it might be very hateful to think that if you have a lot of money then you have more power and more votes. That's a shitty way to organize society. I think we can all agree on that, but is there anything refreshing about hearing someone say that this is going to be the way our country will work? If you have more money, you have more political power. If they are transparent about it, then I guess you can choose whether or not to be part of that system.

What worries me is where these systems are being implemented as a technological solution for a more efficient governance system that allows its citizens to participate in a voting structure that is said to be a very democratic voting structure, we are simply increasing efficiency because computer technologies are used and blockchain is used, which is a very transparent and trustless system, people could say yes, absolutely, I want to support that which I like. how that sounds, but maybe I don't understand that it's actually the more tokens you have, the more votes you have, the more influence you have, yeah, and I would also say that you know in the United States there has always been a huge gulf between rhetoric and reality is that you have a country founded on words about equality for all by slave owners, right, yes, and you can argue that the rhetoric at least some of the people convince themselves that they believed it and tried to push for changes in the system They might realize whatever they thought they believed about freedom or equality, but in the crypto communities it's, I think, more like a Trojan horse or more like something to attract people.people where the understanding that everyone has is that they are not trying to build a society where everyone is equal, they are trying to build a society where more power is given to corporations or individuals with a lot of money and with the fever of some billionaires over what society should be like.

Like it's not about a technology, it's about the people, right, that's the bottom line here and what we should pay for. What we need to pay attention to is what is the culture that attracts people to this technology and the communities? that form around them. We can't paint everyone with the same brush, but what is it? What is the portrait that is emerging? Why yes, you usually know what. we see that in these cases it is a relatively young young man saying what the world would be like if my friends and I could solve all the problems.

He feels like the way technology generally develops is kind of idiosyncratic as well. a lot of money in their hands they decide I'm just going to develop this, they also have a purpose or ideological agenda behind it that wouldn't fly anywhere else and that's why they are using places to develop it and get away with something they know they can't should, it's also creating value, although just like cryptocurrencies make people money, that's not necessarily a bad thing, so what is it about this process that we're going through in the early days of how blockchain is implemented in everything the world? world or blockchains because there are a lot of them, so let's start with El Salvador, because I was there like I met the president once and he seems like a cool guy and he seems cool, right?

The coolest dictator and in the Twitter bio they explain to me what is happening in El Salvador when it comes to bitcoin Bitcoin Beach and this type of thing, as well as what happens, so the Bitcoin law is this law that is passed to require that all companies had to do so. transact or exchange cryptocurrencies, specifically Bitcoin, this is in a country where most people don't have bank accounts, don't have reliable internet access, but the invoice is structured and you know it was partially written by this guy whose company owns an app. about which people will be able to transfer their money to Bitcoin, so it's supposed to now incentivize the creation of this whole new financial system that relies heavily on Bitcoin.

I mean it's ambitious, so the concern here is that the real problem is for the people of El Salvador. If they are going to go completely crypto, their salaries, their wealth will be more vulnerable when they go down, that screws me and everyone I know, but it is going up and it will add more to these people's pockets. who came set it up and made us all adopt it and expose our livelihood to it. I see that there are four million people living in El Salvador, effectively, they have a government telling the four million of you that maybe you should buy some Bitcoin.

I'm sitting in New York and I'm saying, "Oh, great, four million people are buying this now, so the price is going to go up, so a value is extracted that we could call a kind of colonialist problem and then I'll go in and I'll set up some projects to help ensure that those four million people not only use it but continue to use it or figure out more ways to use it and then I'll try to maybe set up more projects in other countries where they have both possibilities President, you know, indicating their intention to make a cryptocurrency acceptable alongside dollars, plus investors come and say that after those projects, we will develop them and help expand them, so this would be a very clear example of an outsider with outside interests using Bitcoin as a way to conduct a social experiment and a group of people living in the global South, yes, it is very much an experimentation through

colonialism

, even if it is self-sanctioned by the president, yes , yes, I mean the people who are not from there the people who finance it are not from there the people who drive the direction in which we will develop or not from there so is this kind of culturally illusory concept the that you might like rebuild society through I think this is one of the many reasons why libertarians aren't really trusted, you know, at the end of the day, sure there's distrust in concentrated power, but who doesn't? , it's the power outside of them that they can't control so easily, which means.

They don't really care if other people or their friends have a lot of wealth. They don't care that corporations have a lot of power and autonomy. They really care about the State that could come in and limit or regulate their activities. Yes, and I think there are projects that we can consider as an alternative design around cryptocurrencies that is not purely driven by profits, for example, the case of ferrocoin in Catalonia with Fair Co-op now that it was founded under cooperative principles and it was implemented, you know, that's how it was. good job in terms of democratic organization, of course, the problems you're running into are: how come we don't agree on the way this should move forward and then you have a fork that comes off and it's never an easy fix, but just recognizing that it's not an easy fix and getting on with the problem, as Donna Haraway would say, let's spend a little time and figure this out.

Is there a chance I guess it can't work? Yeah, a lot of signs out there that, like, hey, this might be messed up, this is kind of reminding us of this or you know, yeah, there are signs, but maybe we're just looking at the wrong signs. Cryptocurrency will definitely work, but the problem is like who is right? I think that's the real question, as we are concerned with the patterns, signs and frameworks that suggest and, as you know, have always led in the past to something that works for a very small group of people who will simply use it to move on to the next level.

The next thing is that they will make it work for a very small group of people if this project only makes one group of Salvadorans rich, but it is also designed to make the existing rich even richer and if we are aware of that then call it that. It's just you know, okay, thank you both for joining me today and talking about all of this. I'm feeling optimistic, we'll see, that's all for us today, thanks and see you next time.