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The NYT reports that a loosely knit group of crypto-currency multi-million/billionaires have chosen Puerto Rico to set up shop -- several reasons are given including a tax haven for US citizens and low real estate prices since the hurricane Maria destruction last year. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/technology/cryptocurrency-puerto-rico.html
Dozens of entrepreneurs, made newly wealthy by blockchain and cryptocurrencies, are heading en masse to Puerto Rico this winter. They are selling their homes and cars in California and establishing residency on the Caribbean island in hopes of avoiding what they see as onerous state and federal taxes on their growing fortunes, some of which now reach into the billions of dollars.
And these men — because they are almost exclusively men — have a plan for what to do with the wealth: They want to build a crypto utopia, a new city where the money is virtual and the contracts are all public, to show the rest of the world what a crypto future could look like. Blockchain, a digital ledger that forms the basis of virtual currencies, has the potential to reinvent society — and the Puertopians want to prove it.
For more than a year, the entrepreneurs had been searching for the best location. After Hurricane Maria decimated Puerto Rico's infrastructure in September and the price of cryptocurrencies began to soar, they saw an opportunity and felt a sense of urgency.
[...] The movement is alarming an earlier generation of Puerto Rico tax expats like the hedge fund manager Robb Rill, who runs a social group for those taking advantage of the tax incentives.
"They call me up saying they're going to buy 250,000 acres so they can incorporate their own city, literally start a city in Puerto Rico to have their own crypto world," said Mr. Rill, who moved to the island in 2013. "I can't engage in that."
I suggest that the SN posters who write, "everything should be organized by contracts, not government" please buy a one-way ticket to PR now! And then see if you can actually make it work. [With limited electricity and thus limited internet, they may not pester the rest of us so often.]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Bobs on Tuesday February 06 2018, @04:46PM (2 children)
So, they are saying: "Hmm, look at these vast tracts of land, that are cheap because of this huge natural disaster.
This is the perfect place for me to build a community! What could possibly go wrong?"
Perhaps they are literally building tax shelters? Shell buildings that they can claim as their residence to reduce their taxes, but not actually live there?
Good luck to em.
But, obviously they have really though this through (from the article):
He really doesn't know anything about the history of banking and currency, does he?
From https://www.history.com/news/8-things-you-may-not-know-about-american-money [history.com]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday February 06 2018, @06:51PM
For that matter, official currency was invented by the Lydians back during the Classic age of Greece, as a mechanism for guaranteeing the purity of traded gold. The Lydian monarchs had tiny bars of gold of "known purity" embossed with their seal as a statement of purity. This greatly increased the value of the gold, so they became quite rich. (You may have heard of "The Riches of Croesus". This is the source of that.) It was still quite legal to trade unembossed gold, but people didn't trust it to be pure, so they wouldn't pay as much.
OTOH, after people got used to only using government currency, governments started adulterating it. Until now we've got paper money that is only valuable because the government is willing to accept it in payment for taxes.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday February 07 2018, @06:24AM
People also used to be able to dig up money, often quite easily.
Reading about the Homestead mine, IIRC, a while back. A mine so rich that you could dig a wheelbarrow of dirt, wheel it to the mint that the government built next door, and have it converted to a 1/4-1/3rd of a wheel barrow of silver dollars. Where the owners really made their money though, was through stock scams.