Meet the crypto billionaires building a world where money buys you a vote

A significant story is unfolding on the international scene. Meet the crypto billionaires building a world where money buys you a vote Figure caption, Watch: What it's like to arrive in Liberland with a group of settlersByMatt SheaReporting fromLiberlandPublished5 hours agoThe Free Republic of Liberland doesn't look like much from the boat. You would never guess that this flat, muddy stretch of floodplain on the Danube River, dotted with alder trees, tents and treehouses, is connected to some of the world's wealthiest men - including the biggest initial investor in the Trump family's crypto business. By contrast, the virtual reality version of Liberland I'm currently being shown, designed by Zaha Hadid's ZHA architecture firm, features gleaming towers, floating public parks, and gravity-defying water features.

The person showing it to me is Vít Jedlička, Liberland's president. He founded the micronation on a disputed bit of territory between Serbia and Croatia with the goal of making a truly libertarian, digital country that runs on the same technology as cryptocurrencies. I've come to Liberland for the past year as part of a Two documentary, The Tech Billionaire Takeover.

The Details

Liberland may look and sound like a joke. But it is bankrolled by some of the wealthiest men in crypto, and it runs on an idea they are trying to export: that government itself can be replaced. Image caption, Looking out at Liberland, the micronation on the flood plains of the DanubeWe arrive at the country by boat because Croatian authorities have stopped people from doing so by land.

A few settlers in anoraks come out to wave to us from the shore and President Jedlička, communicating via megaphone, presents one of the settlers with an official medal. In most modern democracies, everyone has an equal vote. But things are different in Liberland thanks to a purchasable crypto token called Liberland Merits.

President Jedlička tells me a person is elected through Merits. "So the people that have more Merits are able to have more say in who is going to be in the leadership of the country," he says. This effectively means you can vote directly with your money.

What Experts Say

Liberland is also entirely tax-free, something its interior minister, Ivan Pernar, a controversial Croatian former MP who was kicked out of parliament for spreading conspiracy theories, explains to me. "Usually, people who believe in freedom, decentralised finances and so on, they tend to be from the upper class of society," Pernar tells me. "If you make zero selection and you say whoever comes on boat is welcome, we would end up like UK.

""So it's liberty, but... some people have more liberty than others? One of the main ways to gain power and influence in Liberland appears to be through money, I suggest.

"Of course," says Pernar. He says that if you had "a bunch of bums in your country without anything", others would have to contribute to their benefits. He goes on to compare the poor to animals.

The development has drawn wide international attention, with diplomatic circles watching closely.