Have you ever pictured a place where currency is not made less valuable every day, where everyone is respected by one another, where private property is respected, by all its citizens and on top of that, the government?
Welcome to Liberland.
What is Liberland?
Liberland is a self-declared country which is located between Croatia and Serbia, in a piece of unclaimed territory in the Croatia-Serbia border dispute. It is a remarkably small country, of only seven square kilometers, making it the third smallest country on Earth. It was declared an independent state on April 13th 2015, making it only 5 days old (at the time of this article). They are now accepting applications from people worldwide to become citizens of Liberland, by simply fulfilling the following criteria:
- have respect for other people and respect the opinions of others, regardless of their race, ethnicity, orientation, or religion
- have respect for private ownership which is untouchable
- do not have communist, nazi or other extremist past
- were not punished for past criminal offences
However, since it is a very new country, it lacks a lot of basic infrastructure: there is no airport, no military, not even a working post office. Despite that, over 20,000 people have already applied for citizenship, and it is expected that more than 100,000 will have applied when this week ends.
How does bitcoin come into this?
Well, instead of having a private printing press that issues the country’s national currency, it seems that this newly established country will use bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as their official currency to conduct day-to-day transactions. If this really happens, then it would write history since Liberland would become the first country to conduct everyday transactions in bitcoin.