In an exclusive interview, Cryptovest’s Nikita Sachdev had a chance to speak to Vít Jedlička, President of Liberland, at the sidelines of the BlockShow Europe, last month.
For those of you who haven’t heard of Liberland before, it’s a pioneering crypto-focused micronation recently formed over the last 3 years in a 7km2 area on the Croatian/Serbian border. President Vít Jedlička, who came into power in 2015, is a prolific blockchain enthusiast and innovator, who is fully committed to utilising the advantages of digital assets, DLT and blockchain to radically modernise Liberland’s government structures.
According to the President, Liberland is the first country to “HODL Bitcoin as a national reserve currency” and strongly believes that in the not too distant future:
“Even central banks will buy into Bitcoin as a reserve currency so it’s good to be a first mover.”
The country will also have a “fully decentralized justice system…[and] autonomous Government” as well as do all its accounting transparently on the blockchain, based on ‘SwarmOps’ software developed by Rick Falkvinge, former founder of The Pirate Party. Even paying taxes will be a voluntary process, based on a crypto merit staking system that can be paid into using any cryptocurrency. Each citizen who ‘pays taxes’ is essentially just buying these staking merits that grants each holder voting powers over all governing areas of Liberland.
“With these stake merits you will be able to take part in the country’s decision making process. The more merits you stake, the bigger your vote will be. And I think it’s fair because the people that have contributed more to the creation of the country should have more say in it.”
This not only gives people the freedom to choose whether to pay into the Government system or not, but it also incentivizes those that do. President Jedlička also added that in order to keep this system balanced, the majority population can also veto any Government stakeholder decision if the wider community disagrees with a direction.
With all this in mind it’s no surprise that the country has been flooded with citizenship applications since its creation, with over 600,000 submissions and increasing more by the day.
In its brief time as a recognised free republic, having recently celebrated it’s 3-year anniversary last month, Liberland has already opened over 105 offices in 105 countries.
The impressive rate of the country’s growth is unmatched by anything we’ve seen in this space so far, with the President commenting in closing:
“[Liberland is] the fastest growing global nation and project at the same time, opening one office now a week… I think we’ll slowly cover the whole world by the end of the year.”