Тег: tokenomics

I suggest investing in Nostria

In brief

Sondre Bjellos, an activist in two communities, the Norwegian Liberstad and the Montenegrin Montelibero, with extensive experience in building decentralized systems, is launching a startup called Nostria. Until May 31, anyone interested can invest in it at the pre-seed stage on quite favorable terms. For participants of the Montelibero tokenomics, there is an opportunity to form an investor pool to gain greater control over the project.

Now in more detail

Nostr is a decentralized protocol for exchanging “notes and other things” via relays. I have been using it for quite a while now to publish my notes; I see great potential in it and am always glad when someone takes it upon themselves to develop it.

The idea of the Nostr protocol is that relays store their users’ content in JSON format and provide it to other relays upon request. Such content can also be a Bitcoin payment transaction via the Lightning protocol; thus, Bitcoin payments are natively integrated into Nostr, allowing for the decentralized provision of both content monetization and storage monetization (it is precisely in the area of monetization, for example, where the nearest analog to Nostr, the ActivityPub protocol, has its weak point).

The startup Nostria intends to:

  1. Develop its own client for the Nostr protocol
  2. Create a network of several relays in different parts of the world to ensure fast ping and wide bandwidth for its users (performance speed is the bane of decentralized systems)
  3. Promote, at the protocol level, the idea of specialized relays for storing only user metadata, which will offload large relays by distributing users more evenly across relays, and drastically speed up the collection of all messages related to a particular account and their delivery to clients.
  4. Monetize its service through premium services, offering users dedicated relays, a connection to a dedicated Lightning node, a human-readable name tied to a public key, media content storage, and other perks.
  5. Keep all code open on GitHub, as is proper for decentralized systems.

In this video, Sondre talks about his plans:

Those who prefer text over video can check out the pdf.

For now, Nostria’s medium-term goal is to catch up and surpass the struggling Bluesky. In the longer perspective, it should result in a decentralized solution that one wouldn’t be ashamed to migrate to from Telegram, once Durov finally declares that state security is incomparably more important than user convenience and security.

To launch the MVP, a pre-seed investment round is taking place until May 31. Putting it in plain language: Sondre wants to raise 30 thousand dollars by the end of May, and then spend ten thousand a month throughout the summer to bring the project into commercial operation. First month – hardware deployment. Second – software refinement. Third – marketing. In the autumn, when the project is ready to be shown to more serious investors, fundraising for global expansion will continue, and those who invested at the preliminary stage will have a preferential right to reinvest to maintain their share in the project, and their preliminary investments will be credited to the share capital with a coefficient of 1.15.

By default, investments are attracted in Bitcoin using the decentralized crowdfunding service Angor. Sondre has also released a separate video showing how the investing process works.

Important: the project founder can only unlock the collected funds after confirming the completion of the stated development stage. Until that moment, an investor can request their investment back at any time. All these features are implemented through the relatively simple smart contract mechanism that exists in Bitcoin and do not require the interference of a third trusted party.

However, the entry threshold for these investments is currently quite high: the minimum amount to receive any bonuses is 1000 dollars. Therefore, a solution suggests itself: participants of the Montelibero tokenomics can gather a pool of small investments and invest jointly as a large entity. I want to organize such a pool. My benefits: I will receive various non-monetary bonuses such as a premium account subscription. The benefits for co-investors, besides the financial return on investment: through me (or directly, if agreed upon), they will have convenient feedback with the developers, which means influence over the future functionality of both Nostria and, indirectly, the entire Nostr protocol.

Therefore, I have created a pristine Stellar account, issued the NostriaPre token on it, and created an order to sell it for EURMTL. You have until the end of May to buy this token; then I will also buy as much as possible, close the sell order, and transfer all collected EURMTL to Sondre. In the autumn, Sondre will set up an official Stellar account for his startup and create an order to sell official tokens for NostriaPre tokens at a rate of 1.15. When the startup begins to generate income from premium account services, the distributable profit for token holders will be accrued monthly proportional to the number of tokens.

To purchase the NostriaPre token, you must first open a trust line to it. Your Stellar wallet should have this capability. Token name: NostriaPre. Issuer’s public key: GABAZTSE4DOD4JKFPWQYK5QPUSW57QNZBJBREU2K2UFSGWPHBHNYF46A

This is, for example, how the trust line opening dialog looks in the Sunce
wallet.

Soon, the trust line will also be possible to open via a direct link.

I don’t want to overload the post with detailed instructions on using various types of Stellar wallets, as I assume the pool will be joined by those who already participate in the Montelibero tokenomics (an instruction is even posted on my website, but it is very outdated and I haven’t gotten around to updating it). But if you want to jump in from scratch in “Shut up and take my money” mode, please ask questions in the comments or via DM.

Another attempt to recommend the Monteliberal YouTube channel to you

While the channel is on vacation, I’m not bothering with original materials, but so you don’t get bored, I’ll be posting some external content from time to time.

Soz recorded and posted a very high-quality video on MTL-TV, where he explains why the use of multi-signature wallets is extremely useful for literally everyone who holds large sums in cryptocurrencies, and how easily and conveniently this is organized in the Stellar blockchain in general and in the Montelibero tokenomics in particular. I highly recommend it, and I also want to use the suggested recipes once I have a bit more free time.

And don’t forget about the Ankaposhnaya segment on the same channel; they’ve already reached the part explaining the market and seem to have no intention of stopping.

Montelibero, the weekdays of tokenomics

As I have already mentioned, writing news reviews for the entire Montelibero project is currently pointless—no one is capable of fully grasping the state of affairs across the project; it has become too large and complex. Therefore, I will pick certain characteristic themes and provide sketches on them so that a rough impression can be formed about how and what is being done in our community.

The most characteristic feature of the community, as I have written repeatedly, is its developed tokenomics. I dare claim that no other community in the world yet has anything similar. At the time I wrote my first reviews on this topic, the tokenomics still maintained a fairly significant centralization: there was the MTL fund with its own token (which brings modest monthly dividends and is slowly growing in price), there were many tokens issued by the fund to represent its own assets, and there were a couple or three independent tokens, for example, mine. Now, those wishing to diversify their investments have far more opportunities. (True, this is expressed, in particular, by the fact that I managed to place my previous loan of 500 euros in full, while the current one was not fully filled—about 320 tokens were bought. This only means that I need to offer a higher interest rate.)

It is evident that brisk sales followed immediately after the post about the loan placement, but the interested buyers quickly ran out

For example, a person has a dream. He is a programmer, but he also wants to be a DJ. What did he do? He issued DJAndy tokens, and now those wishing to finance his dream can do so. There is an offer with a more detailed description of the terms; it shows that this is essentially a short-term loan with deferred payment, but beyond that, the tokens can be used to pay for his DJ services at a good discount. Who in the traditional financial sphere would invest in someone else’s whims under such conditions? Yet, several people were found, although the total volume of purchased tokens is still noticeably less than the requested amount. The factor of social connectivity proves to be decisive.

In general, of course, the social aspect under ancap is a whole other story. The first Montelibero fund was created for commercial and infrastructure projects and does not engage in charity. Thus, for charitable tasks, a separate fund was created by other people. And what is the result? The fund’s capital is growing, yet there is no queue of suffering people knocking on its doors. People find it beneath them to simply ask for money for living expenses; therefore, the fund’s charity manifests in the fact that it satisfies requests for interest-free loans or sponsors some inexpensive campaigns to promote the Montelibero project.

But even simple interest-free loans already seem like too generous charity to people. For instance, in January, a private kindergarten took a short interest-free loan of 500 euros from the charitable fund to cover a cash gap, and by February, it had already issued its own short-term bonds for 1,000 euros to expand the business—and sold them all in literally two days.

Of course, the mere fact of belonging to the community does not mean that everyone will compete to offer you money on the most favorable terms. On the contrary, newcomers have to make do with short-term loans, while old and venerable companies already have the opportunity to attract long-term money. For example, one of the two whales of our tokenomics, the MTL-City developer, created its own investment platform Tokenopolis, where it offers investments in the construction of specific objects, the purchase of company shares, or three-year bonds. The site is somewhat raw, and if a potential investor knows how to buy tokens through Stellar’s native tools, I recommend using them for now, though it is also possible through Tokenopolis, albeit with some difficulty, and I think they will fix the bugs over time. A secondary market for this family of tokens (as with most others) does not exist—there are simply too few of us for that yet. Thus, after buying a particular investment token, the buyer must be prepared to hold it until the maturity date if it is a bond, and if it is a share, it is completely unclear for how long. Nevertheless, investors can be found.

The second whale of our tokenomics, the diversified holding GPA, also moved from a loan attraction model to the sale of shares. Presumably, they should bring some dividends once a quarter, plus grow in price. However, dividends are not yet being paid, and as long as the entire primary placement is not sold out, one cannot count on a price increase either. But even for such an offer, investors are found, which clearly demonstrates the price of reputation.

As far as I can judge, we have not yet picked all the low-hanging fruit, and Montelibero’s tokenomics is expected to see decent growth in the coming year. Meanwhile, other startup communities will catch up. For example, similar mechanisms for investing in local businesses have already begun to be implemented by the Norwegian Liberstad.

The most promising area of work for increasing the overall volume of tokenomics is the creation of convenient interfaces for third-party investors—through fiat banking instruments or at least through Bitcoin. So far, Tokenopolis has begun to move in this direction, but I hope a more universal platform appears, earning from the integration of Montelibero’s local tokenomics into the world of big finance. Work on this is already underway; perhaps in the foreseeable future, I will be able to tell you what this turned into.

Request for Support, Episode 2

Back in June 2022, I happened to address my readers with a request for support. I needed money to renew my residence permit and repair my scooter. Since then, the scooter has managed to die, but the need to legalize my stay in the country hasn’t gone anywhere. Only the basis for obtaining the residence permit has changed: previously it was my own shell company, now it is fictitious employment, as the costs of maintaining a company have risen sharply.

As last time, I plan to raise 500 euros. The buyout mechanism will differ slightly from last time. Now I am placing a sell order for 500 ANCAPCHAN tokens at a price of 1 EURMTL. On March 1, I will place a buy order at 1.01 (no less than 100 ANCAPCHAN), on April 1 at 1.02 (no less than 100 ANCAPCHAN), and on May 1 at 1.03 (no less than 300 ANCAPCHAN). In this way, I motivate myself to repay the debt as soon as possible. On June 1, I will decide that everyone who wanted to sell for a profit has had the chance to do so, and thereafter tokens will be bought at 1.

The main target audience for the loan is those who personally like me, as well as those who would like to commission me to write texts with payment in my own tokens: according to the established tradition in Montelibero, such clients always have priority, and a damn good reason is needed to refuse to fulfill their order.

In case any of the readers, for some strange reason, have not yet dealt with the tokenomics of Montelibero, I provide a link to my old instructions (they should be updated, but I haven’t gotten around to it; perhaps this update will be the first thing commissioned from me).

Once upon a time, this image was drawn for me specifically for posts expressing gratitude for money)))

Ancap-paternalism

Something peculiar happened in Montelibero recently. Someone appeared who wanted to enter our tokenomics with a large sum. Most likely, he read the instructions and began to follow them. He obtained dollar stablecoins from some external exchange and went to exchange them for our euro ones. Meanwhile, the order book usually looks something like this:

What do we see here? There is a certain number of tokens trading in both directions with a more or less reasonable spread, and then orders begin at completely absurd prices; for example, 5 EURMTL are offered for sale at a price of 1000 USDC each. For such an order to be triggered, someone would first have to buy more than four thousand EURMTL at a price of around 1.12, and under normal conditions, this of course never happens. But when someone, without looking and with a broad gesture, throws, for example, 40,000 USDC into the market, they will buy up all the cheap euros, and with the remaining amount, they will stock up on overpriced ones. That is exactly what happened.

According to libertarian principles, this deal, like any other voluntary transaction, is completely legitimate. A person has every right to sell a glass of water for a diamond in the heart of a desert or a kilogram of flour for an antique icon in besieged Leningrad. Likewise in our case—there were no more favorable offers on the market, and the buyer agreed to what was available.

What is the difference between our case and the aforementioned cases of buying under conditions of extreme scarcity? In our case, there was no real scarcity in the market. It would have been enough to buy as many tokens as were listed for sale at an acceptable price, then wait a bit and make sure that other traders arrived and placed new orders at prices not much worse. One could also have written in the chat: “I want to buy euros for forty kilobucks, but there aren’t that many on the exchange, who is ready to sell more?” Finally, one could have contacted the MTL fund directly, saying, “Guys, you’re emitting a stablecoin here, how about you issue more coins against my dollars.”

But to do this, one must understand the specifics of the acquired asset and the specifics of the trading tools. And this leads us to a discussion of paternalism under ancap.

What is paternalism? It is a demand for a social arrangement that reduces the cost of a mistake. Is there such a demand under ancap? Of course, yes. Even looking only at tokenomics, it exists, firstly, from the side of beginners who do not yet fully understand the principles of how it works and therefore risk losing a lot through carelessness. Secondly, there is a demand from the developers of tokenomics tools: if a tool is dangerous to use, people will use alternative solutions. Thirdly, there is a demand from community activists: it is important to them that people come and stay, rather than fleeing in horror after hitting such pitfalls.

How was the case described above handled?

Firstly, additional checks were added to the MTL-Wallet. If a user wants to exchange a large amount at market price, the bot compares the effective exchange rate for the proposed amount and for an amount a hundred times smaller. If they differ by more than 10%, the bot issues a warning.

Secondly, the trader who made a fortune on their order was found and persuaded to return the earnings (I am not aware of the details; perhaps they kept some for themselves, but the victim, nevertheless, remained completely delighted). This was the hardest part, as the ancap community has no tools for forced coercion to return funds, nor should it have any.

Thirdly, the fund plans to place protective orders for all main trading pairs so that it would be extremely difficult for a careless buyer to break through them.

What conclusions can I draw from what happened?

Firstly, paternalism is natural, and there is no need to fight it.

Secondly, under ancap, paternalism is limited by libertarian principles, namely self-ownership and the non-aggression principle.

Thirdly, even with such limitations, fully functioning paternalistic tools can be created in society.

So here is another argument for your collection of debates with statists, proving that ancap is not cannibalism, and that private paternalism is more effective than state paternalism.

Montellibero’s criticism from bitcoiners

A podcast was released on the Hype Coin News channel, for which two bitcoiners wanted to invite our Soz from Montelibero to tell them about Montelibero. However, the guys failed to account for the Montenegrin polako — Soz was late, and the entire podcast took place without him. As a result, it became a conversation between a person who knows something about Montelibero and a person who knows nothing but is trying to understand.

The main question that concerned the interlocutors for most of the podcast was “why are they using some shitcoin, what’s it called, Stellar, when there is a normal, orthodox Bitcoin?”

I have two answers to this question.

The first is usability. For instance, I cannot provide a link to a post from the Hype Coin News channel, nor to the channel itself, because it is private. As for how to subscribe to it — God knows; I subscribed somehow a long time ago and no longer remember how (which is why I am simply posting the podcast right here). It is roughly the same situation with attempts to operate tokens on the Liquid Bitcoin sidechain. Yes, the MTL fund has a Bitcoin sub-fund there, but all I managed to do there was buy L-MTL tokens with Bitcoin and occasionally nudge the head Bitcoin guru manually so that he would manually transfer the dividends to my Lightning wallet. This is not a full-fledged tokenomics, but rather a reservation for Bitcoin maximalists.

But if one sets a goal, it is possible to write a custom wallet (such an attempt is discussed in the podcast) with decent usability, and the first answer would become irrelevant. So, I have prepared a second, more fundamental answer.

What do our bitcoiners see as the main advantage of Bitcoin as a platform for tokenomics? That by issuing tokens, you provably freeze Bitcoins as collateral. But if an investment fund freezes all receipts, it turns out that it is investing in Bitcoin, and only in Bitcoin. However, the MTL fund needs to invest money into one business or another. Thus, its tokens will ultimately be backed not by the original carrier of value transferred to the fund, but by obligations. It doesn’t matter what entered the system. Some bought MTL tokens with Bitcoin, some with rubles, some even with the god-forsaken Lumens. Most of these funds were then converted into euros, and those euros were used for purchases on the external market. And entries appeared on the fund’s balance sheet regarding which assets it acquired. More precisely — tokens of the assets acquired by the fund. The fund does not have a single euro — neither in bank accounts nor in cash — because such entities cannot be put into a blockchain. Instead, it has tokenized euros (which the fund’s treasurers are obliged to exchange for cash upon first request, and these are specific people, and as many as needed can be brought in). Plus tokenized businesses that bring dividends. Plus tokenized investments that one hopes will increase in price — for example, land or Bitcoin itself.

If we used tokenomics based on a Bitcoin sidechain, it would be absurd. I freeze my Bitcoin in the sidechain and receive an MTL token. Then, for the fund to invest the funds, it would need to find someone who will accept this Bitcoin frozen in the sidechain and give euros for it. And where can you find such a person?

It is clear that bitcoiners would like to see something like the Bitcoin Beach project, where there is a large local economy, and everyone within this economy keeps records and makes settlements in Bitcoin. Need land — buy it with Bitcoin. Need a tractor — buy it with Bitcoin. Need to pay taxes to the damn state — pay with Bitcoin.

Yes, in such a world, tokenomics could be based on Bitcoin. What stopped us from doing something similar? Nothing, it is simply a completely parallel task. When the Bitcoin Beach franchise comes to Montenegro, we will be able to fit into it. But for now, it is more convenient for us to use another solution, one that is cheaper and simpler.

Tokenomics is perpendicular to Bitcoin. Bitcoin is about the ability to store and transfer value without trust. Tokenomics is about the ability to monetize trust. One does not hinder the other.

As a dessert, I suggest refreshing your memory with a couple of my texts on tokenomics: part 1, part 2.

Preliminary results of the request for support

Over the past day, five people purchased my debt obligations for a total of approximately 65 euros. All five are small investors in the Montelibero tokenomics; thus, the large investors respected my request and did not rush to buy up the debt first. Well, now it is time for them. I am keeping the sell order at a price of 0.97 open until this evening (19.06), and at 22:00 Podgorica time, I will close it, leaving only the standard order at a price of 1 EURMTL. Tomorrow I will need to spend the first two hundred-and-something euros, so to obtain the remaining amount I will still lack after closing the sale of debt obligations, I will sell some MTL tokens.

In connection with all this movement, I have received several questions about why such an unusual method of obtaining money was chosen. Actually, the method is quite conventional, as these are essentially ordinary short-term bonds. It is just that usually, legal entities rather than individuals borrow in this form. I wanted to test how capable our tokenomics is of servicing personal brands, as well as to get some evaluation of what my social capital is equal to in monetary terms.

I was also suggested another possible alternative: using stablecoin loans collateralized by Bitcoins. This is also potentially a good way to attract fiat during a crypto winter, however, it requires preliminary preparation: finding a suitable exchange, ensuring that it allows not only depositing funds but also withdrawing them without insane commissions and without presenting a “good Russian” passport, plus having the tools to obtain those very loans. In general, during a period when holders of Russian passports are being chased away with jeers across the entire financial world, I would not want to deal with exchanges.

Finally, there were questions about what guarantees I can provide for the fulfillment of my debt obligations. There are no guarantees in the sense that collateral is not held by third parties. Therefore, I rely only on my public reputation. Also, theoretically, holders of my tokens can sell them at a discount to project participants living near me, so that they could recover their money through the threat of force or confiscation of property. This is also an ancient and venerable way of getting money from debtors, which is always worth keeping in mind.

Request for support

I would like to address my readers with a proposal. In the coming days, I will face some expenses in euros that cannot be covered by my own euro income. This primarily concerns costs for renewing my residence permit, as well as repairing my scooter. Meanwhile, almost all of my savings are held in bitcoins, and now is an extremely inappropriate time to sell them because the exchange rate has crashed significantly.

As an alternative, I could sell the remains of my MTL tokens, and if the method I want to propose to you does not work, that is exactly what I will do.

I have placed a sell order for 500 ANCAPCHAN tokens at a price of 0.97 EURMTL, and I am selling the rest, as before, at par value for 1 EURMTL. Starting October 1, 2022, I will place buy orders for my tokens at a price of 1 EURMTL and undertake to increase the total volume of buyback offers at this price to 500 no later than December 31, 2022; in other words, from October 1 until the New Year, all buyers of my promissory notes will have the opportunity to redeem them, if they wish, receiving a premium of 0.03 EURMTL per token.

Exactly how to acquire ANCAPCHAN tokens is described in my guide to Montelibero tokenomics.

I hope that as a result of this special operation, the tokens will be distributed among a fairly wide audience; it would be more pleasant for me to know that a lot of people wanted to buy them in small amounts, rather than one large trader. But we shall see; let the market decide.

Montelibero Tokenomics. Part 2, practical.

In the first article, written a long time ago, I explained what tokenomics is and how it is applied in Montelibero. Also, not long ago, I published a post where I shared my observation that a functioning tokenomics is exactly the unique feature today that distinguishes our community from other offline projects—both libertarian ones and those not concerned with ideology (except, perhaps, Kolionovo, but nothing has been heard from there for a while). Now the time has come for the long-announced second article—about how to enter our tokenomics and how to navigate it.

If you have already moved to Montenegro, the best way is a personal meeting, where everything will be shown to you, they will help you install it, and make sure everything is working. Therefore, the following text is for those who have not yet moved here, which is by no means an obstacle to entering the tokenomics.

In this case, you will most likely need the tokens of our main investment fund MTL, as well as euro-stablecoins EURMTL (at least to receive dividends from the fund). If you intend to limit yourself to this, a special solution has been created for you that requires minimal effort: a wallet in the Telegram bot @MyMTLWalletBot.

Launch the bot and press “Create free account.” That’s it, you have a wallet with two open trust lines: to the EURMTL stablecoin and to the Montelibero investment fund token MTL.

By clicking the Receive button, you will see your public key, which you can use to receive tokens.

Now you just need to contact the fund representatives through another simple Telegram bot @mtl_helper_bot, agree on the purchase of MTL tokens using a payment method convenient for you, provide them with the address from the previous image—and the purchased tokens will arrive there. Subsequently, dividends in EURMTL will arrive at this same address every week.

Sooner or later, you may require more advanced functionality, and then it is definitely worth getting a more serious wallet.

If it is important to you that the wallet does not ask for unnecessary information and has open-source code, your choice is Solar. After installing and launching the application, you can add any number of accounts, although in most cases one will be sufficient.

Click Add account
Since you presumably have no existing account to import, click Create account
If desired, the account can be protected with a password
A key pair is generated. You are asked to ensure that no one is about to take a screenshot of your screen, after which you click Reveal key to see and save your private key, which is used to sign transactions.

Now you have an empty account. By entering it, you can click Receive and get your public key, which is also the wallet address where tokens can be sent to you.

When you have just created an account, it cannot be used yet because any operations require the payment of fees in the internal Stellar cryptocurrency, Lumens (XLM). It costs pennies, so just contact the fund representatives through the same @mtl_helper_bot, provide your public key, and they will give you some for free. Only when the first lumens arrive in your wallet will the account be considered created, and the person who sent these lumens will be recorded in the blockchain as the account creator.

So, the first lumens are received, and the account is working. By clicking the menu icon, you can see all the simple functionality of the wallet, in which we are currently interested in the “Assets & Balances” item.

To acquire any tokens other than XLM, you need to open trust lines to them. Click Add Asset To Your Account.

In the window that opens, type “mtl” and you will see the search results. We are interested in the MTL token issued by mtl.montelibero.org (fakes issued by someone else may be found; they should not be added). Click on it to see the token description.

All that’s left is to click ADD ASSET TO ACCOUNT, and the trust line to the token is open. In doing so, 0.5 XLM is frozen; they will be unfrozen if you decide to delete the trust line to the token.

In a similar way, add a trust line to EURMTL—again, choosing specifically the token issued by mtl.montelibero.org from the search results.

That’s it; you have now manually reproduced what was done with one button in the Telegram bot. However, this account is completely under your control.

The Solar wallet is convenient if you want to have several different addresses for different needs and are ready to independently organize the storage of those addresses to which you need to make transfers fairly regularly. Also, using this wallet means that you do not frequently require automatic token-to-token exchange. Otherwise, it makes sense to consider a wallet that is less aligned with advanced ideas of privacy but possesses some additional functionality.

This functionality is provided by the Lobstr wallet, which is used by most of the people who moved to Montenegro. This is a web wallet, which also exists as a mobile application. A simple account setup procedure:

Click Get Started
If desired, protect the account with a password

As you can see, the wallet requires an email address, which, in theory, is not necessary for working with crypto. After confirming the email, you can go to settings and save your keys: public (starts with G) and private (starts with S, not visible on the screen, opened by the “Reveal secret key” button). You can also set a Federation address, which is similar in syntax to an email and is therefore easy to remember.

Notifications of operations will then arrive by email, and tokens can be sent to your federation address as well as to your public key. Also, this wallet allows you to save your counterparties in a contact database under human names, which is why I personally value it.

Next, when sending tokens, you have the option to choose a recipient from the contact list.

Select which tokens you are sending and how many. If desired, you can add a short text comment, which will also be recorded in the blockchain. That’s it, you can press Send.

Another advanced feature of this wallet is token exchange. Click Swap assets.

Next, choose which tokens you are selling and which you want to buy. The wallet searches for all open sell/buy orders for all tokens in the Stellar blockchain and tries to build a chain of exchanges that will give you the desired result.

Thus, you can freely exchange a wide variety of tokens. For example, as shown in the screenshot, buy my personal ANCAPCHAN tokens using EURMTL (after first opening a trust line to them). In doing so, firstly, you donate to me; secondly, you receive a collectible token in return; and thirdly, if at some point you decide to get your euros back, you can always sell the token back. Admit it, this is a more flexible scheme than simply sending money to my address.

So, you have chosen the most convenient Stellar wallet for you and mastered the basic operations with it. Now you have the opportunity, for example, to regularly invest part of your ruble earnings into the Montelibero fund (considering that, at the time of writing these instructions, the ruble has an artificially inflated exchange rate due to Russian Central Bank regulations, such a tactic looks very attractive). This is more meaningful than simply donating to the project’s needs because donations are just money, whereas with investments, we also get the minds of investors interested in multiplying capital, not spending it.

After buying your first MTL, you will be added to the token holders’ chat, where investment policy is discussed, and if you are lucky enough to be in the top twenty by share of ownership in the fund, you will gain the right to sign its decisions. Mainly, this means the obligation to certify the dividend payment transaction every Friday, but from time to time, more interesting issues must be resolved. Until a certain threshold of signatures is reached, a decision on a particular payment simply cannot be technically processed.

There is also an option to delegate your voting right to another project participant, and if enough of these accumulate so that their total ownership share puts them in the top twenty, the delegate becomes a signer (I am currently among them for this very reason; my personal ownership share is no longer enough). Our colleague Soz wrote a good guide on how to delegate a vote. Also, you might be interested in his guide on how to support a useful member of the community. Such support will mean more than just a symbolic gesture. The project participant you support becomes part of the distributed government of Montelibero—a collegiate body which, unlike the twenty fund signers, deals not only with the fund but with the project as a whole: where to go, where to advertise, and how to react to challenges.

And further, it is hoped that you will become sufficiently experienced in tokenomics, expand your portfolio from just MTL to tokens of specific businesses that interest you most, and look closely at the surrounding reality, estimating where tokenization could be useful. Ancap is expansive; there is no need to be shy about it. Here, you can admire the list of goods and services that you can already purchase using EURMTL. Your business may also soon find itself on this list.

Libertarianism and Social Experiments

In a recent Montelibero news post, I mentioned that among the project participants, there are surprisingly few—not to mention active members—of either of the two Libertarian parties of Russia, or even people somehow connected to them. Perhaps this thought is worth expanding upon.

Of course, at the start of the project, no one could say exactly what it would turn into over time. One founder saw it as a center for agorism. Another as a platform for the future transformation of Montenegro along libertarian lines. For me, it was a platform for the evacuation of Russian political activists from the Putin regime. As a result, we do indeed have a center for agorism, and the strategic goal of transforming Montenegro is written in our project description, although we haven’t made much progress in that direction. As for the evacuation platform—we indeed became one, but more and more people joining us are not political activists, but ordinary libertarians who aren’t interested in any such politics.

And, you know, it seems that this is actually a good thing. Judging by what reached me during the period when I was still relatively close with political libertarians, the bulk of their party activity boiled down to bickering over the charter and dividing power within the party (which happened to be splitting in two at the time). Here, frictions occasionally arise regarding the coordination of joint activities, but there is none of this endless expelling of people from the movement. You approve of the market, you don’t approve of state intervention, you don’t practice coercion—well, great, we are on the same path, and you can get acquainted with the smart books in your spare time, if you get around to it.

I was recently asked what, exactly, distinguishes our community from any other hangout, since here in Montenegro, there are several other emigrant groups that likewise do not practice violence and fully approve of freedom. I had to think about it, and as a result of my reflections, I found the only fundamental difference: we have tokenomics. That is, essentially, we simply actively practice the formalization of our market relations and obligations in an explicit form, and it is precisely this that gives us the opportunity to develop very actively.

The question arises: what if some other community manages to implement tokenomics for themselves, how will they differ from us? And here I note with surprise that, in essence, they won’t. Tokenomics (unlike cryptocurrencies) operates on trust, because linking tokens to real-world objects is impossible without trust. And trust among community members is possible only because they share a common value, such as a love for the market—specifically, for voluntary transactions. Any inclinations toward ideas that it’s useful to deceive “suckers” will be immediately rejected by the community (along with the carriers of such ideas), because our mutual obligations are not secured by any state violence, and deploying the tools of private violence is expensive and troublesome, and just not worth it. If some other community manages to reproduce similar relations within itself, we can boldly recognize them as our equals, and at the same time recognize their tokens. Thus, a completely seemingly auxiliary tool unnoticedly turns out to be a unique feature and almost the basis of identity.

As for political methods of solving problems, it’s truly better to leave them to the parties. And for them, we are apparently doomed to remain a completely non-political project, whether for selling land or some other politically meaningless activity. Let’s wish these guys luck in their mission, but if any party member wants to move from politics to economics—our doors are open.

Do you accept EURMTL?