Blockchain-Based Virtual Nations

Discussion

Primavera de Filippi:

"The concept of blockchain-based virtual nations is interesting because it is highly controversial. It is, in fact, supported by different groups, for very different purposes.

On the one hand, the concept of a virtual nation is appealing to many libertarians, who see it as an opportunity to reduce the room for governmental intervention, by creating new ad-hoc governmental structures aimed at creating a society governed by (unregulated) market forces, and nothing else. This is the vision brought forward most prominently by Peter Thiel, who envisions the creation of a new sovereign nation on an offshore artificial island, built 200 miles off the Californian coast. This vision is also shared by a number of crypto-libertarians (May 1994), such as the team behind Bitnation, who believe that—since we have lost trust in our governments—we shall now rely on blockchain technology to create trustless systems (i.e. systems where trust is no longer needed) with a view to support and facilitate a series of atomic peer-to-peer interactions in a seemingly stateless environment (Atzori 2015).

On the other hand, there are people who see virtual nations as an opportunity to overcome the lack of trust in governmental institutions, through the creation of new trusted communities with a global scope. These communities can experiment with new institutional structures that operate independently from, or as a complement to existing institutions. They can support the emergence of grassroots initiatives designed to fill the gaps generated by the progressive shrinking of the welfare state (Feigenbaum & al. 1998)—i.e. the provision of public services and shared infrastructure, the pursuit of the common good, and the protection of individual and collective rights. Blockchain technologies could provide new mechanisms of social or political coordination, allowing for transnational communities and activist groups (such as human rights defenders, Internet freedoms advocates and climate change campaigners) to gather around a newfound sense of identity and organise themselves as a collective.

The idea is not to replace nation-states with new or competing forms of sovereignty, but rather to provide new means for global communities to mobilise and experiment with new ways of engaging in civic life. If political participation no longer finds its place in the context of traditional governmental structures, perhaps these virtual communities—or cloud communities, as Orgad calls them—might be able to bring civics back to life. Indeed, if citizenship refers not only to a legal status, but also to an individual’s political activity (Dalton 2008) and collective identity (Eisenstadt & Giesen 1995), we might soon witness the emergence of new global citizens, who regard these new virtual nations as polities and self-identify as their members.

This is the vision supported by initiatives like Democracy Earth and Aragon, two blockchain-based platforms providing tools for small and large organisations to operate in a globalised post nation-state world, through their own governance rules and dispute resolution systems. Without trying to replace the role of the state as a political institution, these initiatives are exploring whether (and how) some of the functions undertaken by governmental authorities—e.g. the issuance of identity cards, recordation of vital records and maintenance of public registries, etc.—could be transposed into a blockchain-based system.

People are thus ideally free to decide, on a case-by-case basis, whether they want to rely on traditional institutions and governmental frameworks, or whether they would rather adopt these new experimental systems, whose values they might feel more attuned with. As a general rule, citizens cannot easily revoke their allegiance to a particular nation-state, because—as highlighted by Rainer Bauböck—the social contract described by Hobbes and Rousseau is not a negotiable contractual agreement entered into by consent (i.e. citizenship as a legal status is generally something that one does not chose and that, once acquired, cannot be easily gotten ridden of). Yet, to the extent possible, they could choose to acquire additional citizenships, becoming members of multiple communities based on affinity and consent. Insofar as they provide valuable services to their citizens, these virtual communities (or virtual nations) may be competing with one another—and potentially with nation-states—so as to expand their user-base.

While this might sound speculative at best, we are already seeing glimmers of this world. "

(https://globalcit.eu/cloud-communities-the-dawn-of-global-citizenship/3/)