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A Cryptocurrency Millionaire Wants to Build a Utopia in Nevada (nytimes.com)
chiefcrash shares a report from The New York Times about a man who wants to build a community based on the blockchain technology introduced by Bitcoin: An enormous plot of land in the Nevada desert -- bigger than nearby Reno -- has been the subject of local intrigue since a company with no history, Blockchains L.L.C., bought it for $170 million in cash this year. The man who owns the company, a lawyer and cryptocurrency millionaire named Jeffrey Berns, put on a helmet and climbed into a Polaris off-road vehicle last week to give a tour of the sprawling property and dispel a bit of the mystery. He imagines a sort of experimental community spread over about a hundred square miles, where houses, schools, commercial districts and production studios will be built. The centerpiece of this giant project will be the blockchain, a new kind of database that was introduced by Bitcoin.
So far, he said, he has spent $300 million on the land, offices, planning and a staff of 70 people. And buying 67,000 largely undeveloped acres is a bit of old-fashioned, real estate risk-taking. Still, Mr. Berns said his ambition was not to be a real estate magnate or even to get rich -- or richer. He is promising to give away all decision-making power for the project and 90 percent of any dividends it generates to a corporate structure that will be held by residents, employees and future investors. That structure, which he calls a "distributed collaborative entity," is supposed to operate on a blockchain where everyone's ownership rights and voting powers will be recorded in a digital wallet. "In a keynote spectacle at Devcon4 in Prague, Berns announced some of their plans for the future, as well as some of their recent activities, such as buying two nuclear bomb shelters, a mountain fortress in Switzerland, and a bank," adds Slashdot reader chiefcrash.
So far, he said, he has spent $300 million on the land, offices, planning and a staff of 70 people. And buying 67,000 largely undeveloped acres is a bit of old-fashioned, real estate risk-taking. Still, Mr. Berns said his ambition was not to be a real estate magnate or even to get rich -- or richer. He is promising to give away all decision-making power for the project and 90 percent of any dividends it generates to a corporate structure that will be held by residents, employees and future investors. That structure, which he calls a "distributed collaborative entity," is supposed to operate on a blockchain where everyone's ownership rights and voting powers will be recorded in a digital wallet. "In a keynote spectacle at Devcon4 in Prague, Berns announced some of their plans for the future, as well as some of their recent activities, such as buying two nuclear bomb shelters, a mountain fortress in Switzerland, and a bank," adds Slashdot reader chiefcrash.
It'll come from blockchain.
You see, by recording things in blockchain, the least efficient database ever conceived of, anything becomes possible.
...even if you disagree with him. He is putting his money where his mouth is and trying something new.
Yes he is a very wealthy man who can afford to squander a big chunk of his resources. There are very many people who could well afford to expend a small portion of their resources and try nothing.
There are easily ten of thousands of "serious" socialists who spin yarns about their beautiful ideas, ideas that a couple hundred of them could try to put into practice by pooling their resources and building a new kind of community on the embers of some rural town whose heyday is long past. But they do not try.
This man is trying.
This comic is a dispatch from the future of this city.
Stop learning! Only you can prevent esoterrorism.