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posted by martyb on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:06AM   Printer-friendly
from the more-money-than-sense dept.

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.]


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @06:16PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @06:16PM (#633994)

    the point of a smart contract is that it enforces itself.

  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:26PM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:26PM (#634176) Homepage
    Smart contracts sound really cool. They magically make ordered goods appear where they were supposed to be delivered? Does it even work if all the devlivery drivers have massive hangovers? And if the raw materials have run out such that the ordered goods can't even be made?

    A utopia built on smart contracts is an unworkably fantasy built on unworkable fantasies.
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves