Liberstad is a city in Norway that is known for having an anarcho-capitalist government. However, they have decided to make a major decision in their stance on cryptocurrency – to offer it as an official medium of exchange. According to a press release on February 12th, the city is releasing newly native crypto on the smart city platform, which is already supported with blockchain.
Founded in 2015, Liberstad was created after the Libertania project completed, which is run by the Liberstad Drift Association. This nonprofit group helps with the autonomy of the city-society without the former government interference. The freehold plots of the city were sold in 2017 for either Bitcoin or Norwegian krone. The report indicates that approximately 100 prospective residents chose to buy in by April of last year.
The head of Liberstad Drift AS, John Toralf Holmesland, has helped to implement the libertarian ideology and non-aggression principles into the society.
Regarding this unique decision, he wrote,
“We want a society where people decide over themselves and can live together without government authorities. We want a society without government coercion, blackmail, surveillance or unnecessary violence.”
The new city now has a “City Coin” (CITY) as their cryptocurrency. National fiat currencies are entirely prohibited, and the only way to pay within the city is with the CITY token. It operates seamlessly with the blockchain-powered smart city platform. Locals have the opportunity to use CITY “on a private, internal, and voluntary basis,” though it replaced public provisions that would otherwise be offered by the government. The press release said that the blockchain’s reputation for being trustless and decentralized is the “key ingredient for the development and prosperity of sustainable and free city-societies.”
Any new residents that are welcomed into Liberstad interact with a platform for the City Chain through a municipal app. The dashboard lets the community performance many different needs, like managing identity documents, voting on various initiatives in the city, registering their property, and other services.
With the City Coin, the blockchain uses a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus algorithm that allows block validators to earn tokens for their work, though their selection is based on the current number of tokens in their wallet. This full embrace of blockchain is what makes Liberstad so unique, considering that there are very few locations in the world to do so.
Still, there are some countries working to establish themselves on the blockchain. The United Arab Emirates, for example, is working on making a blockchain-based smart megapolis out of Dubai by the end of next year. In China, JD.com recently established the Smart City Research Institute, which focuses on improving the development of smart cities. The technologies that this initiative focuses on are artificial intelligence, big data, and blockchain.
