THE TECHNO-UTOPIAN MICROSTATE LIBERLAND

“It seemed like a much more reasonable action to start a new country rather than try and fix an existing one”. This is how my conversation with Czech politician Vít Jedlička, President of The Free Republic of Liberland starts. Liberland is a micronation established in April 2015, when Jedlička claimed an uninhabited no man’s land – a so-called terra nullius – of 7 square kilometres in-between the Croatian and Serbian border.

The vision was to create the world’s first decentralised government, using blockchaintechnology to set up a state without compulsory rules and hierarchical structures. The project received massive attention within its first year in media from The Guardian, CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, Fox News, The Telegraph to note a few. During its first week alone, Liberland attracted no less than 250,000 people from all over the world, who signed up online for citizenship.

But where is Liberland today? I caught up with Vít Jedlička for an interview about what has happened in the past three years; about starting a new country from scratch, attempting to rethink governance systems with blockchain technology, and his expectations for the future of Liberland.