[Daily] Are you ready to build your own country?

Good morning! Welcome to The Daily Moon. It’s a brand new week. Damus, the decentralised social network, has been banned in China. The alt Twitter, backed by Jack Dorsey, is supposed to be against all forms of censorship, now that coupled with the fact that it lends support to the Bitcoin lightning network contributed to China asking it to leave. Just for the record, before it was banned, it was fast picking up users in the country. 🤔

Moving on, today we talk about crypto’s micronations and Logan Paul’s misfortunes.

As of Sunday, 3:45PM IST

The markets recovered. Bitcoin was at $23,400 levels and Ethereum was headed towards $1,700. Nasdaq fell on a heavy selloff. Back home, Sensex and Nifty ended higher on buying in banking stocks.

Crypto Nations Are Under Works

Have you ever thought about community living? The one where you stay together with your favourite people and do things in consensus? Well, something to that effect is WIP in the crypto world. A bunch of people have made attempts to create micronations powered by crypto.

Micronations? Nations as in actual places with their own flags and governments. There is Liberland, Puertopia (now called Sol), Verdis, and Satoshi Island to name a few.

It is almost like “utopia” where everything is perfect. But there is a little dampener. These crypto nations won’t actually be recognised as real countries.

So what’s the point?Crypto believers aren’t happy with how a select few makes rules for all citizens. Then there is also a grouse that regulators are wary of crypto. So instead of a wait-and-wait approach, some decided to break away into their own countries. Micronations that will run on crypto and be governed by the community that lives there.

Where are these ‘nations’?Some of the crypto nations are in disputed territory so it is unlikely that there will ever be an established country. Nevertheless, attempts continue. Here’s a glimpse into some of them:

Liberland: This is a disputed patch between Croatia and Serbia that has been claimed as a crypto nation. ‘Liberlanders’ as they are called, thought that it was better to start anew than fix the current political system. The nation has selected Polkadot as the country’s governance system. There will also be DAOs to run it. Crypto will be the only mode of payment. Visit at your own risk because Croatian police arrest anyone who enters the island. https://youtu.be/MEZLhx-9wD0

Verdis: Another crypto nation in Liberland’s neighbourhood — Verdis, it was ‘founded’ by 14-year-old Daniel Jackson in 2019. Now he’s got 27 people in the government. What’s better is that Jackson’s in talks with a Southern African country called Eswatini to get Verdis’ passports recognised. Once that happens, it will be a nation IRL.

Here’s 18-year-old Daniel Jackson, the ‘president’ of Verdis with its national flag

Source: CoinTelegraph

Satoshi Island: This is a tiny island in the South Pacific Ocean. It’s targeted at digital nomads who can live, work, visit, and mingle with fellow crypto lovers. Satoshi will only have 21,000 citizenship NFTs to avoid overcrowding. But there’s a caveat. Even if you have a Satoshi Island Citizenship NFT, you’ll still need a visa and passport to enter because it’s part of the island country Vanuatu. 🤷

Sol: It’s located in the town of Ceiba, Puerto Rico. The plan is to build a blockchain-powered city with a crypto bank near the abandoned naval base. A few people such as Tether co-founder Brock Pierce even relocated to Sol. But ever since the crypto winter hit in 2022, we don’t have any updates about the project’s future.

Cryptopia/House of DAO: Now this is an interesting one because it was shut and relocated a few times. It was first located in a Thai island Koh Pha-ngan where technology entrepreneur Kyle Chasse took over a resort and called it Cryptopia. It was to be a paradise for decentralisation and a ‘private country’ in the future. However, it soon turned into a non-stop party zone with free flow of drugs. It was quickly renamed to House of DAO and moved closer to Phuket. That shut too. Last we heard, Chasse wants to buy an island in Fiji to make it a crypto nation.

Are these legit? They aren’t. Not yet. You can buy all the NFTs, digital passports, and crypto in the world but if the crypto country isn’t recognised, it remains a pipe dream. The idea isn’t bad, it is just that it will take a while to go mainstream.

Logan Paul Will Have To Pay

This weekend was an unfortunate one for influencer Logan Paul. The popular Youtuber who had started an NFT project — Cryptozoo — is now at the receiving end of a class action lawsuit. He had been accused of running a ponzi scheme.

ICYMI: He was first accused of running a rug pull. He first bristled and took on his detractors on his Youtube channel, then apologised for his mistakes and is now going to have to pay if he loses the lawsuit. Sceptics had accused him of running a project that never existed.

More pain for NFTsDo you remember the project Squiggles? The very popular rugpull where the community tracked down the founders to demand their money back? It seems federal investigators are looking into the founders now and have set up a grand jury to bring charges against them.

It’s not a good time to scam the NFT community. They will make you pay.

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