Beyond democracy: could seasteads and cryptocurrencies replace the nation state?

For the past 20 years I’ve been working to enable start-up societies: permanent autonomous zones on land or at sea intended to accelerate economic development and to serve as laboratories for voluntary political experiments.

For just as long (in fact since I first read The Sovereign Individual), I’ve been interested in the potential of digital cash, which is finally arriving in the form of bitcoin and the emerging cryptocurrency industry.

Start-up societies and cryptocurrencies have many parallels. Both grew from individualist movements seeking ways to take their philosophy from online message boards to the real world. Both seek to decentralise power in order to disrupt traditional institutions seen as having been captured by selfish elites. And both are critically dependent on ‘governance’ — the technology of designing and enforcing rules for collective decision-making.

Because of these parallels, people are often curious about how the two movements relate. Will seasteads — as manmade permanent dwellings at sea are known — use cryptocurrencies? Will blockchain projects such as Bitnation replace the nation state? In a world of competing virtual economic systems, do we even need to reform government in real life? (Answers: maybe, not soon and absolutely.