Тег: Prospera

Free Cities Conference 2026, Day 2

Following the pattern of the previous post, I am posting the main theses of the second day of the Free Cities Conference 2026.

1. Seasteading Panel

  • Speakers: Joe Quirk (moderator), O’Shane Balloon, Jorge Schmidt (maritime lawyers), Chad and Nadia Elwartowski (the first seasteaders).
  • Topic: Legal realities, obtaining flags, and seasteading security in international waters.
  • Key points:
    • Chad and Nadia’s experience: After building the first floating home prototype in Thailand’s contiguous zone (14 nautical miles from the shore), they faced a harsh reaction from the Thai military, who accused them of threatening sovereignty (which carried the risk of life imprisonment or execution).
    • The role of the flag: Being in the contiguous zone (from 12 to 24 miles) allows coastal states to exercise customs and immigration control. Registering a vessel under a flag (e.g., Panama) does not provide full extraterritoriality, but it moves the seastead from the status of a “pirate” or undocumented vessel to the protection of an internationally recognized registry. Without a flag, any state has the right to inspect the vessel under universal jurisdiction.
    • Taxes and citizenship: A Panamanian flag does not automatically grant citizenship or the right to reside on land. Regarding taxes, Panama uses a territorial principle (taxes are paid only on income earned within the country). However, O’Shane Balloon reminded that US citizens are taxed on worldwide income, and even working in Antarctica is taxable since it is not the territory of a foreign “state.”
    • Security against pirates: Security is the first step in blank-slate governance on the water. The flags of some countries (e.g., Mongolia) explicitly allow weapons on board, making it legal to hire private security firms.

2. IP Debate

  • Speakers: Alex Voss (moderator), Stephan Kinsella (patent attorney, IP opponent) and Brian O’Hearn (lawyer, IP supporter).
  • Topic: Should free cities protect intellectual property?
  • Key points:
    • Stephan Kinsella (against IP):
      • Patents and copyright are government privileges and monopolies arising from royal decrees, not natural rights. True property rights are only needed to resolve conflicts over scarce (physically limited) resources. Ideas are not physically limited and can be copied freely, which historically makes humanity wealthier.
      • Large corporations use patents not to protect inventors, but to create cartels. Free cities should minimize IP protection (exclude software, remove criminal penalties, shorten terms) without fearing sanctions, since patent law is strictly national in nature and does not prevent residents from patenting their inventions directly in the USA or EU.
    • Brian O’Hearn (for IP):
      • IP is one of the last lines of defense for the individual and their intellect against corporate monopolies merged with central banks. Without copyright protection, large corporations will take any developments for free.
      • IP rights are symmetrical (everyone has the right to protect their invention). Brian suggested segmenting the patent system by industry (for example, granting long patents to the expensive pharma industry and short or zero patents to software). He cited J.K. Rowling as an example, who would never have become a billionaire from being a single mother without copyright protection.

3. Per Bylund (economist)

  • Topic: How to make free cities entrepreneurial superpowers.
  • Key theses:
    • The essence of entrepreneurship: It is the creation of subjective value for the consumer, rather than simply satisfying “unsatisfied demand” (demand is formed only when a supply is created).
    • Invention vs Innovation: An invention is the creation of a new thing, which may not have value in itself. Innovation is bringing a product to market and creating real utility for the consumer (for example, the Pet Rock in 1975 was not an invention of a stone, but became a successful innovation).
    • Advice for free cities:
      • Do not subsidize entrepreneurship artificially (criticism of the models of Klaus Schwab and Mariana Mazzucato, which redirect resources to serve the state instead of consumers).
      • Ensure clear and simple property rights (excluding IP) and make the costs of doing business the diametrical opposite of what the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) does.
      • Perceive the free city as an “exchange platform” (similar to a Sears catalog).
      • Focus on B2B clients rather than B2C, as consumers are fickle, while businesses are oriented toward objective profit, and it is B2B that forms the basis of the Austrian economic model.
      • Do not plan industrial clusters from the top down — they should emerge organically through competition and the selection process of the entrepreneurs themselves.

4. Institutional Investment Panel

  • Speakers: Alex Voss (moderator), Trey Goff (Prospera), Lada Moberg (macro investor), Patry Friedman (Pronomos Capital).
  • Topic: How free cities can attract large institutional capital.
  • Key points:
    • Venture Capital vs Real Estate: Venture Capital (VC) is suitable for the early stage, when investors believe in the founding team and the story. As the project grows (Growth stage), real financial metrics and proven unit economics are required. Large real estate and infrastructure funds enter based on the collateral of hard assets, which reduces risks. Real estate in free cities acts as a “value soak,” absorbing the positive externalities of good governance.
    • Political Risks: The risk of expropriation by the state is extremely difficult to assess in the private sector, which is why commercial insurance against political risks is insanely expensive. Only state structures (for example, the US International Development Finance Corporation — DFC) can effectively insure such risks, as they are backed by the diplomatic and military power of the state.
    • Crowd Effect: Investing is a herd process. Once at least one large “boring” investor (for example, the US DFC) is attracted, it will serve as a powerful signal of safety for the entire global financial market.

5. Francisco Litvay

  • Topic: Special Economic Zones as a tool of Flag Theory.
  • Key points:
    • Flag Theory: The distribution of key spheres of life (citizenship, residency, company, banking) across countries that offer the best conditions.
    • Second Passport: No SEZ has the right to issue its own citizenship. The closest path is investing in a business within SEZs of countries offering citizenship by investment (Egypt — from $350k, Turkey — from $400k, Caribbean programs — from $1.5 million).
    • Tax Residency: Madera (Portugal) gives 10 years of 0% tax on foreign income and low VAT; Prospera (Honduras) offers tax resident status for a fixed $5,000 per year if staying on the island for at least 7 days; Indonesia introduced 5–10 year visas for investments from $350k to $700k in a new financial center.
    • Business Advantages: Uruguayan Zonamerica (0% tax on service exports); export zones of Paraguay (1% value-added tax, cheap energy); UAE (popular free zones for obtaining residency); ADGM/DIFC (UAE) and Cayman Enterprise City — the best zones for crypto projects and fintech.

6. Max Medina (architect)

  • Topic: Invisible Architecture: why all cities are the same and how to design a free city.
  • Key points:
    • Invisible Architecture: The shapes of buildings are determined not by architects, but by invisible rules, regulations, economic factors, and sunlight standards.
    • Design Principles: A symbiosis of nature, people, and technology. Ecosystems (coral reefs and rainforests) should serve as inspiration as multi-layered, ultra-efficient bio-cities.
    • Projects in Prospera:
      • Pioneer Village: A modular settlement capable of growing over time like a coral reef.
      • Circular Factory: A factory for producing modular homes with a roof that mimics mountains. It includes a beer garden where clients can drink beer while robots assemble their homes. Local Honduran women manage the robots.
      • Beta Residences: A prototype for modular housing (currently a hotel) that allows the house area to expand twofold as the family grows by simply moving partitions. Construction costs turned out to be 60% cheaper than similar options on the island.
    • Designing for the Moon: Experience working on lunar base projects with NASA and Elon Musk, based on a triad: survival, community, and purpose.

7. Jeremy Kaufman

  • Topic: The Free State Project in New Hampshire.
  • Key Points:
    • The main political question: what is more important — rules or people? The Free State Project proved that people come first.
    • Starting as an assurance contract on a Yahoo forum in the early 2000s with the goal of gathering 20,000 libertarians in one state, the project became the most successful freedom movement in the USA.
    • New Hampshire’s Successes: The state has no income tax and no sales tax. Libertarian activists now control about 25% of the state’s legislative body. The state has the best gun laws, the lowest murder rate in the USA, flying cars are legalized, and a universal school voucher system (school choice) has been introduced.
    • Displacement Strategy: Democratic opponents are so intimidated by the activity of libertarians that they themselves discourage progressive leftists from moving to the state via social networks, helping the project select the right population.

8. Mark Lutter

  • Topic: The transition of charter cities from idea to reality.
  • Key points:
    • Rules Determine Prosperity: The difference between North Korea and South Korea (with identical culture and geography) lies solely in the rules.
    • The Lesson of Shenzhen: It was not just an industrial park, but a zone of over 320 sq. km with colossal autonomy. Economic reforms only reveal their potential with a sufficient population scale.
    • Urban Expansion Company: A new initiative of the Charter Cities Institute (CCI). Instead of endless and complex negotiations with governments to obtain sovereign concessions, the company is starting to build physical satellite cities in Africa using a development business model.
    • Business Model: Purchasing large tracts of land (the first project is about 700 hectares for 40,000 residents), providing basic utilities (roads, sewage, water, electricity), and selling plots to residents for independent construction. This allows bypassing construction regulatory barriers and providing affordable housing for the middle class.

9. Patrick Lamson-Hall (Fitted Projects)

  • Topic: How to plan working free cities: 5 lessons.
  • Key points:
    • The movement is very well-versed in the theory of governance, but weaker in urbanism, which has been in crisis for the last 100 years due to the failure of utopian projects.
    • Lesson 1: A city is not a building. Clear specifications make a building better, but kill a city. A good city should develop emergently. Rigid zoning deprives a city of flexibility (for example, preventing a cat cafe from opening in place of an unwanted barbershop). “Good cities build the stage, they don’t write the script”.
    • Lesson 2: Aesthetics and function are subject to the market. People go to cities for jobs, not just for beautiful isolates. Any elite enclave depends on service personnel, and if you don’t integrate them into the city’s economy, you lose their purchasing power.
    • Lesson 3: Location is the most important decision. Two critical things that cannot be underestimated: proximity to a good international airport (fixing this mistake costs billions) and proximity to a mature labor market.
    • Lesson 4: New urbanistic concepts rarely work. Be skeptical of eco-cities (Songdo) or projects like “The Line” that optimize transport systems instead of human convenience and require coercion to function.
    • Lesson 5: Focus on public space. The developer should take their hands off the private sector and focus on public space (streets, parks). A street grid is the most durable solution (the Roman grid of Turin is still visible after 1000 years).

10. Max Borders (Human Respect Labs)

  • Topic: Full-spectrum free jurisdictions.
  • Key points:
    • Accountability Loops: The relationship between “citizen-client” and “service provider” must be regulated by clear feedback loops. All disputes should be resolved by private arbitration, not elections.
    • Role of culture and philosophy: Entrepreneurial initiative alone is not enough; it is necessary to form a culture and an “empire of the mind” (solidarity/asabiyyah) so that the community can survive during times of hardship.
    • Direction of liberalism: The speaker divided the participants into “gnostics” (out-of-touch theoretical purists) and “droids” (pure pragmatists who ignore philosophy). The movement needs “directed liberals”—pragmatists who have a value compass but know how to move step-by-step from A to B.
    • Human Respect Labs: A grant program (microfinancing up to $30,000) to support early projects of liberal innovators and communicators.

11. Dušan Matuška

  • Topic: Lessons from the “bitcoinization” of Roatan island.
  • Key points:
    • Lesson 1: Trust takes time. It took 2 years of work to overcome the negative legacy of local “large-scale” crypto scammers (for example, a pastor from French Harbor who sold shitcoins to his congregation).
    • Lesson 2: Start with financial literacy. It is pointless to offer bitcoin as a means of saving to people living paycheck to paycheck. First, you must teach them how to budget.
    • Lesson 3: Quality is more important than quantity. Chasing the number of merchants accepting BTC is a mistake, as high staff turnover often means new baristas do not know how to use wallets. It is more effective to make the business owners themselves bitcoiners, who then train the staff.
    • Lesson 4: Do not say the word “Bitcoin” immediately. To overcome the fear of school principals regarding crypto, Dušan’s team first taught the history of money and the collapse of fiat, which opened doors for 10-week educational courses.
    • Replaceability: The project must be sustainable and independent of the founder; it is important to train local ambassadors.

12. Panel “Ocean Living on a Budget”

  • Speakers: Chad Elwartowski (Ocean Builders), Mason (Atlas Yachts), Mitchell Sutner (Arcpad).
  • Topic: What you can buy on the water for $3k, $30k, and $600k.
  • Key points:
    • Budget $3,000 – $30,000: For $3,000, you can rent a luxury floating villa for a week (Maldives/Philippines), and for $30,000, you can build a simple floating house of plywood and fiberglass yourself using the True North Yachts method for closed lagoons. For $500 in the Philippines, you can buy a 0.75% share in Reef Resort with dividends paid in crypto.
    • Budget $300,000 – $600,000: With this budget, you can acquire an Arcpad D (deep-sea seastead) costing $300k, with a lifespan of 80–95 years (version C successfully withstood four typhoons in 2024 in the Philippines without any damage). From Mason (Atlas Yachts), for $275k you can buy a 42-meter floating condominium (studio catamaran), and for $375k–$650k — full-scale family floating homes with solar energy and desalinations systems.
    • Operating expenses: Practically zero. Atlas Yachts aluminum hulls require no maintenance, and on stationary Arcpad platforms, a low current is applied to prevent corrosion and the buildup of biomass, which additionally protects the metal and attracts fish. Waste is processed by incinerator toilets (only ash remains). The only regular fee is the annual vessel flag registration fee (about a couple hundred dollars).

13. Joe McKinney

  • Topic: Sovereign Tribal Governments and SEZs in the USA.
  • Key Thesis:
    • Purely contractual free zones often collapse during power shifts, as constitutions must become “living” by overcoming inevitable conflicts (similar to a marriage or Lincoln’s reconstitution of the USA after the Civil War).
    • Native American Tribal Sovereignty: This is a powerful, centuries-tested legal tool for decentralization in the USA. Tribes possess inherent sovereignty that predates the USA itself and is enshrined in the Constitution. They can establish their own courts, commercial codes, and zones.
    • Catawba Digital Economic Zone Case: The first digital SEZ created in partnership with the Catawba tribe, allowing fintech companies to register bypassing state jurisdiction. The overturning of the Chevron doctrine in US courts has further strengthened the position of tribes against federal agencies.

14. Timothy Allen

  • Topic: Results of 200 hours of conversations on the “Free Cities Podcast”.
  • Key Thesis:
    • Top 3 Insane Government Regulations:
      1. Car License in Liberland: Croatian police fined Liberlanders for driving a motorized construction wheelbarrow without a driver’s license.
      2. The Veritas Villages Panama Paradox: Government-approved HOA rules created a bureaucratic loop, complicating any simple household changes within the community.
      3. £114 Million Bat Tunnel in the UK: As part of the HS2 high-speed rail project, a protective tunnel was built to protect 50 bats, costing more than £2.2 million per bat.
    • Top 3 Libertarian Fails:
      1. Self-destruction of the Libertarian Center in New Hampshire: After expelling two problematic residents by vote, the community became obsessed with endless ideological “purges” and inquisitions until no one was left in the center.
      2. Massimo Mazzone’s Perfect Hack: In Ciudad Morazán (built on 100% libertarian principles), ordinary Honduran workers live and work without arguing about Hayek and Mises, which is why the society prospers — the key to success is the absence of libertarians.
      3. Joe Quirke’s Harmful Ideas: Joe’s book “Seasteading” makes wealthy people abandon comfortable lives, spend millions, and nearly die twice on barges.
    • Top 3 Kidnappings in SEZs:
      1. Hostages in Bir Tawil: Christoph Hoyermann declared a free city in Bir Tawil. Local Bedouins with Kalashnikovs took them hostage for 20 hours because someone jokingly hoisted a flag with a penis on it.
      2. The Coup in Sealand (1978): Sealand’s founders were lured to Austria, while a landing party arrived by helicopter on the platform, capturing the Prince’s 26-year-old son and sending him to Holland on a trawler.
      3. James Bond in Sealand: Prince Michael’s son hired a stuntman from James Bond movies; they flew in on a doorless helicopter with shotguns, retook Sealand, and locked the traitor in the local prison.
    • Conclusion: 2026 became a turning point — we moved from abstract theory to Booking.com, real cups of coffee, and playgrounds in free zones.

15. Titus Gebel (closing of the conference)

  • Topic: Closing remarks, secrecy, and the future.
  • Key points:
    • A record number of participants — 260 people — attended the conference. Holding the event within the actual free city of Prospera (rather than in Prague or Switzerland) proved that the movement has materialized.
    • Pipeline secrecy: Answering participants’ questions, Titus explained why the foundation does not disclose the list of future projects: it is too politically vulnerable, as opposition in host countries instantly spin a populist narrative of “betrayal of the homeland” and blame Peter Thiel for everything.
    • The example of Shenzhen: Deng Xiaoping’s reforms were a successful attempt to decriminalize the market in communist China based on the model of a free Hong Kong. Even if states try to lock capitalism within small zones, this trend can no longer be stopped.

Free Cities Conference 2026, Day 1

The Free Cities Conference 2026 is taking place in Prospera.

I started listening to the first day’s broadcast, but I quickly grew tired of perceiving so much English speech by ear, so I waited for the broadcast to end and uploaded the entire first day into Gemini Notebook. Then I asked for the main talking points of the presentations. Here is what resulted:

1. Peter Young (Host, Opening Remarks)

  • Presentation Topic: Introduction to the “Free Cities” concept and the conference program.
  • Key Points:
    • The free city concept is based on two elements: de facto or legal autonomy (a special zone expanding upon the SEZ idea) and the protection of individual rights (life, liberty, property), allowing people to freely build businesses and partnerships.
    • Four types of projects are presented at the conference: intentional communities (Veritas Villages), systeding (Arcpad, Liber Arcs), migration movements (Free State Project in New Hampshire), and next-generation SEZs (Morazán, Prospera).
    • The first day’s program focuses on specific projects and systeding; the second day is dedicated to macro-problems (including debates on intellectual property); the third day is for decentralized networking.
    • Decentralized governance is the future, capable of radically improving quality of life and defeating poverty through the competition of systems.

2. Titus Gebel

  • Presentation Topic: Stepping into the future.
  • Key Points:
    • The future of society will be determined by three spheres: government as a service (GSP) and meritocracy, permissionless innovation, and beautiful architecture.
    • Government as a service: a provider protects life, liberty, and property for a fixed fee based on a contract (without forced taxes, DEI, ESG, and interference in citizens’ affairs), with independent arbitration.
    • It is necessary to respect the sovereignty of the host state — this relieves the project of concerns regarding foreign policy and defense, provides automatic integration into the banking system, and allows arbitration decisions to be enforced abroad.
    • Architectural principles of Tibolis: walkability (pedestrian accessibility of all objects within 5–10 minutes to stimulate personal interaction), mixed use (mixed use), and beauty as productive capital (including the reduction of visual noise from advertising).

3. Eric Brimman

  • Presentation topic: Developing the Prospera model to create prosperity.
  • Key points:
    • The legitimacy of libertarian ideas in practice is proven only by how much they actually improve the lives and well-being of specific people.
    • The MAYA concept (Most Advanced Yet Acceptable): innovations must remain within the bounds of what is possible in the existing world (within the framework of the host country’s sovereignty), otherwise the accumulation of too many innovations will lead to automatic failure.
    • Political lessons: projects inevitably exist within a political field. Prospera made a mistake by not working in the early stages to win political and social legitimacy at all levels of the host country’s society. Paper agreements do not work on their own without a social license, although they do require a solid legal foundation.
    • St. John’s Bay: a new semi-private city based on Prospera for young entrepreneurial families. It will be complemented by the Satu mainland industrial park following the successful “Hong Kong — Shenzhen” model (the island as a hub for talent and finance, the mainland as a base for low-cost production).
    • Co-creation: a rejection of centralized planning in favor of co-investors who receive real land ownership and shares.

4. Patrick Hebert

  • Presentation topic: Building self-sufficient Veritas Villages communities in Latin America.
  • Key points:
    • The FIRST philosophy: Freedom, Independence, Resiliency, Sustainability, Transparency.
    • While Canada and Europe are sliding into authoritarianism and high taxes, Latin America is gradually moving away from socialism toward the market.
    • Absolute autonomy: 100% off-grid premium homes powered by solar energy. In Panama, the “Green Cities” law was lobbied for, allowing homes not to connect to the state power grid. Own chlorine-free water from deep wells, own farms, gardens, and fish ponds.
    • Bitcoin integration: up to 20% of land is purchased with BTC. Corporate reserves are held in bitcoins, and employees receive part of their salary in them. Residents mine BTC using excess solar energy to fully cover HOA expenses and reduce the cost of living to zero.
    • Governance: The HOA operates entirely on the blockchain using quadratic voting for conflict-free dispute resolution.

5. Mikuel Thorup

  • Presentation topic: A century mindset and a millennium family.
  • Key points:
    • It is impossible to plan life in detail 1,000 years in advance, but it is possible to grow a family capable of adapting to changes in laws, languages, and states. A century mindset spanning three generations is needed.
    • Transferring wealth is not yet a legacy. Assets passed to unprepared heirs without the development of a sense of responsibility lead to the rapid liquidation of capital.
    • A family must develop 8 types of capital: economic, physical, intellectual, social, reputational, emotional, cultural, and spiritual.
    • Pronatalism and upbringing: it is important to create large families and instill in children the desire to have children of their own. Upbringing happens through modeling: Mikuel’s children sit with him at real board meetings and business gatherings.
    • Family office is the key institutional system for coordinating assets, jurisdictions, and preparing the new generation.

6. Danny Hatler

  • Presentation topic: Presentation of Los Freedom Ranking 2026.
  • Key points:
    • Traditional freedom indices (Heritage, Cato) assess only recognized states and are skewed toward the development of government regulation.
    • The new Los ranking includes 235 territories (including private cities, overseas territories, individual US states, Swiss cantons, and special economic zones).
    • Freedom is defined classically: “the right of a person to be left alone” as long as they do not harm others. Evaluation is based on 6 categories: taxes, money, economy, property, personality, and space.
    • In the ranking, Prospera takes 1st place with a score of 9.313, while mainland Honduras is in 189th place with a score of 2.13. The ranking is fully interactive and customizable based on the user’s individual values.

7. Joe Quirk

  • Presentation topic: Legalization and legal arbitrage in seasteading.
  • Key points:
    • Historic achievement: lawyer George Schmidt obtained the first Panama flag for a seastead in international waters, which opens up 2/3 of the planet for jurisdictional freedom.
    • The first profitable seastead is the floating resort Reef Resort by Mitchell Sutner in the Philippines (water hotel + high-tech self-cleaning fish farm that produces 10 times more food than it consumes).
    • Mobility as protection against corruption: when the coast guard began extorting bribes from Reef Resort, the resort simply weighed anchor and moved to an island with a friendlier mayor. In the future, states will begin to compete for floating cities, offering them favorable regulatory packages under their flags.
    • Freedom for biotech: floating platforms outside the control of the FDA are a trillion-dollar market for accelerated testing of revolutionary medical drugs and life-extension technologies.

8. Yan Bertram

  • Presentation topic: Free Cities Foundation Knowledge Base and the new portal.
  • Key points:
    • Launched Knowledge Hub — a single interconnected digital database of all foundation materials (articles, podcasts, presentations, project and speaker profiles) from the last 8 years.
    • The fight for the digital narrative: The speaker urged projects to optimize their websites for AI crawlers (LLMs), so that algorithms learn from accurate data on alternative governance rather than distorted articles from mainstream media.
    • A donor portal has been opened (available for a $5 micro-donation) featuring exclusive content and the ability to add events to a unified community calendar.

9. Nicholas Anzinger

  • Presentation topic: Five-year retrospective of Prospera’s development and biotech acceleration.
  • Key points:
    • Starting with the organization of the Build Prospera Summit in 2022, Nicholas created the venture fund Infinita VC, which invested in 34 startups (4 of which work directly with Prospera, utilizing its flexible regulation).
    • The creation of the temporary pop-up city Vitalia (2024) attracted over 500 people, including Balaji Srinivasan, Naval Ravikant, and Bryan Johnson, and made Prospera a global hub for longevity.
    • In Vitalia, biotech startups were given the opportunity to conduct rapid clinical trials (e.g., Unlimited Bio’s gene therapy).
    • Prospera’s experience was transferred to the USA: Nicholas’s team helped develop bill SB535 in Montana, which allows private oversight boards to conduct experimental treatment (expanded right-to-try).

10. Mitchell Sutner

  • Presentation topic: The infinite future of floating cities and Arcpad technology.
  • Key points:
    • Advantages of seasteading over land-based cities: permissionlessness (only a flag is needed, rather than coordinating laws with a host country); mobility; modularity (the cost of expansion decreases due to economies of scale, unlike increasingly expensive land); high food production density.
    • Jurisdictional quilting: residents of a modular floating city can physically move from a home under the Panama flag (for business) to a home under the Netherlands or USA flag, choosing the laws that suit them best.
    • Arcpad D: a completed modular construction made of fiberglass and stainless steel with a lifespan of 80–95 years. It is disassembled and delivered in a standard shipping container, assembled on-site according to instructions (following the IKEA furniture principle). Official approval from the Panama Maritime Authority has been obtained.

11. Tim Stern

  • Presentation topic: Change of power in Venezuela and the Crypto City project.
  • Key points:
    • The sudden fall of the Maduro regime in January 2026 and changes in oil laws open up colossal potential for the return of capital and explosive economic growth.
    • Crypto City on Margarita Island: a special economic zone covering 40 hectares with a tax-free regime. Development is carried out in terraces (300 houses) to ensure an ocean view for every resident.
    • Management via DAO: residents vote on the admission of new neighbors based on their resumes. The community uses a blockchain-based DAO for collective funding of projects in Venezuela (a diamond mine, a nursing home for the parents of expats, a state lottery on Margarita).

12. Mason

  • Presentation topic: Atlas Yachts floating home.
  • Key points:
    • Mobility provides freedom (like a queen in chess).
    • Atlas Yacht (formerly Libra Arcs) is a full-fledged solar-powered “floating condominium” for permanent family living, not a status pleasure craft.
    • It is equipped with a huge solar roof, a reverse osmosis desalination system, and Starlink, making the owner completely independent of external power grids and water pipelines.
    • Open-source model: vessel blueprints are made publicly available so that buyers can build them at any shipyard, as well as repair and customize their home independently.
    • The model range consists of 4 types of vessels (from 39 to 79 feet) at the price of a regular condominium ($275k–$950k), but without property tax and utility payments.

13. Patri Friedman

  • Presentation topic: Questions and Answers (Ask Me Anything).
  • Key points:
    • The most promising project of the Pronomos fund right now is the Alpha City holding in Africa (working in 7 countries to create special jurisdictions: geothermal AI data centers, universities, agriculture).
    • Incentive alignment model: the host country’s government becomes a minority shareholder in the project, receiving a direct benefit from its success.
    • The “cold start” problem: infrastructure in a new location is very expensive, and attracting people is difficult. African projects solve this through the gratuitous allocation of vast land areas by governments, which immediately strengthens the company’s balance sheet.
    • A free city is primarily a commercial product and a business. Systemic freedom is more important than the personal ideology of the residents; therefore, it is not necessary to hire only libertarians—it is better to attract the best professionals (urbanists, engineers).

14. Telmon

  • Presentation topic: Edge City as an incubator for society and network cities.
  • Key points:
    • Edge City runs month-long pop-up villages for scientists, philosophers, and tech entrepreneurs (12,000 participants in 3 years).
    • Community principles: health by default (workouts, healthy food), interdisciplinarity, co-creation (95% of activities are created by the participants themselves), and intergenerational continuity (children’s camps).
    • Month-long pop-up camps are “version 0.1” for testing long-term partnerships with permanent smart cities and SEZs (such as Gelyphu Mindful City in Bhutan or Esmeralda in California).
    • An experiment called Agent Village is being conducted: every resident receives an AI agent with the context of the entire city, which helps coordinate meetings, create schedules, and manage the shared budget.

15. Billy Tetrude and Stacia Wilson

  • Presentation topic: How to build a “freestead” in Texas.
  • Key points:
    • Freestead uses existing legislation to create a free city without the need to request special statuses, international treaties, or SEZs from governments.
    • Freestead toolkit: mandatory arbitration (creates alternative courts and legal norms); tax redirection (land rent payments based on the Georgist system instead of property tax); private roads (allow for removing cars, narrowing streets, and distributing utility costs at the block level); absence of rigid regulations (in unincorporated areas); resident screening (to form a high-trust society).
    • Stacia Wilson emphasized the importance of forming clear, filtering value-constraints (e.g., “take personal responsibility for everything in life”) as early as the marketing stage, so that undesirable people filter themselves out.

16. Oliver Porter

  • Presentation topic: The contractual municipal model of the city of Sandy Springs.
  • Key points:
    • The residents of Sandy Springs (100 thousand people) for years paid a huge share of taxes into the county budget, receiving terrible municipal services in return. After gaining autonomy in 2005, the city applied a corporate approach.
    • Fully contractual city: at launch, Sandy Springs had only two employees on staff. Absolutely all city services (road repair, cleaning, administration) were purchased on a competitive basis from private corporations.
    • Results: over 10 years, taxes did not increase by a single cent, the quality of services entered the top 10% in the country, and a surplus of $40 million was accumulated with absolutely zero long-term debt and pension obligations. Using this model, 12 more cities were later created in Georgia.

17. Massimo Mazzone

  • Presentation topic: Philosophical roots of entrepreneurial communities and Ciudad Morazán.
  • Key points:
    • The social contract in traditional states is coercive. An alternative is private proprietary cities (entrepreneurial communities / entriccom), operating on a shopping mall model (one landowner provides security and infrastructure services in exchange for rent). This eliminates collective choice and political disputes—those dissatisfied simply leave.
    • Ciudad Morazán operates under the ZEDE law of Honduras: a free economic zone (0% VAT, customs duties, and taxes to the state, except for 12% contributions to national needs such as the army), a flat income tax of 5%, its own police force without the right to use violence (operating under a contract with residents), and a total absence of government jurisdiction in labor and education law.
    • Unlike Prospera, Morazán targets not wealthy libertarians, but local factory workers (maquilas). The real estate rental model (without sale) protects the project from evolving into a totalitarian democracy.

18. Joyce

  • Presentation topic: The “Live and Let Live” movement (3L).
  • Key points:
    • The movement was founded by Marc Victor and proposes a formula for conflict resolution: “Did a person, group, or government commit aggression?”. If society cannot unambiguously agree, the issue is resolved at the most local level of the community.
    • Application in Morazán: private police have no right to use force, issue fines, or lock people in prisons. They monitor the residents’ contract. Rule-breakers receive warnings, and for persistent violations, the administration simply does not renew the lease, and the person leaves without violence.

I think the conference provided a convenient snapshot of the current state of affairs: to what extent libertarians, having decent resources and not being under sanctions, have managed to make progress in the promotion of charter cities, what difficulties they encountered, and what conclusions they drew.

Naturally, Russian libertarians, being relatively poor and severely deprived of their rights—above all, to any self-governance initiatives worldwide—are unlikely to be able to reproduce any of this for themselves. For us, it would be a blessing to ensure a level of interaction in the mode of “living among ourselves relatively peacefully, not attracting the close interest of the state, and having established some kind of internal market.” The knowledge that one should not chase all innovations at once on one small site is somewhat redundant for us, although not without interest.

Nevertheless, an individual Russian libertarian could well try to join a charter city project in a private capacity; perhaps there is a need somewhere for ordinary citizens, and not just fat investors who are not considered affiliated with special services.