{ "episodeId": "SLP417", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "titus_gebel": { "name": "Titus Gebel", "role": "guest", "tag": "TITUS" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:08", "start": 8.47, "text": "Hi and welcome to Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin and Austrian economics. This show is brought to you by Swan Bitcoin, and Swan is organizing a fantastic conference coming up called Pacific Bitcoin. It's going to be on the 10th and the 11th of November in LA, California. We've got an awesome lineup of speakers. We have Michael Saylor himself coming in person. We have Alex Epstein, Lynn Alden, Corey Klipstein. And Jeff Booth, Dylan Leclerc, Pierre Richard, Wolf von La, Eric Kaysen, Mark Moss, Alex Gladstein, Parker Lewis, Preston Pish, and many more. I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to be one of the hosts, so I'm really looking forward to seeing you there. There will be three stages. There'll be all kinds of events leading up to this in the week prior, so make sure you come to town early. So if you're interested, make sure you get s-- together with some of your friends and family, go to pacificbitcoin dot Bitcoin dot com. Are you interested in Bitcoin mining? Brains dot com is the site for you. They offer Brains OS Plus. This is auto-tuning mining firmware. You can increase the hash rate on your Bitcoin ASIC. You can improve efficiency by as much as twenty-five percent, and you can mine on any pool or point your hash rate towards Brains pool and get zero percent pool fees. Brains also offer a range of educational content where you can find material on their blog about mining, as well as products and services available from Brains. And don't forget They've also got the Insights dashboard, which if you go there, you can find out things like their mining profitability calculator. You can get all of this over at brains dot com, that's b r a i i n s dot com. When it comes to Bitcoin hardware security, my favorite is CoinKite dot com. You can get the Cold Card, which is an extremely versatile device. You can use it in single signature mode, you can directly plug it if you're a beginner, or you can use SD cards to airgap that, or you can use NFC also. You can use it as part of Use it as with BIP85 or SeedX or there's just so many different ways that you can combine and use various features to use a very secure device that's also very reliable. I found it really good that you can set up this device without having to plug it to a computer, you can just initialize it, plugging it only to power. So that's a really cool feature also. So go and get yours at coinkite dot com, use code Livera for a discount on your cold cards. Now for today's show, Titus Gebel rejoins me. He is the author of The Free Private Cities Foundation, which is now called the Free Cities Foundation, and he is currently the CEO of Tiplus. So we talk about a range of things. Now, for those of you who haven't heard the earlier episode, I recommend you go and check that one out, that's episode one six one. But the basic gist of it is a free private city is this idea of having a privatized ownership and governance model for a city, and you would have a contractually fixed amount that you pay for certain services. So in this episode, we talk a little bit about the progress being made towards visualizing these things, actually having free private cities and making governments compete for you is the basic idea. So in this episode we talk about that, as well as the upcoming conference called Liberty in Our Lifetime. That one is in Prague. But without any further ado, here's my conversation with Titus. Titus, welcome back to the show. Hello, Stephan. Good to be here. Yeah, now it's been a few years since we last spoke. I think it was, maybe two and a half years ago. It was, it was around the start of all of this hysteria at that time, and things have come a long way since then, and obviously I, I'm excited about what's going on with the, well, now it's the Free Cities Foundation and, some of the work that you and the team are doing. Do you want to tell us a little bit about, I guess some of the big updates" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "03:48", "start": 228.07, "text": "Cities Foundation. So, do you wanna just tell us a little bit about that?" }, { "speaker": "titus_gebel", "time": "03:51", "start": 231.23, "text": "Yeah, of course. So, the reason for that was that we wanted just to, to cover a bigger area, not only the free private cities types of models, the free private city types of, people, or projects, but also there are a lot of intentional community efforts out there. There are some things which are half free private cities idea, but half other, and this is- Something we are also interested in be-- because you know that what I wrote in my book is that the main issue is that we should have more competition in the market of living together, and that has not necessarily to be exactly my free private city model. there are DAO ideas a-- around there and all kinds of stuff. So I think as long as people want to achieve the same goal as, as we-- this is create a place where you have more liberty, more self- Determination. You are in our team, right? So and we, we want to cover all those projects, all the seed staders and, and everyone who is kind of, I want to, to create a better place for me and my children and, and as a model for the rest of the world. This is what we want to cover. And so far, we have just said, \"Hey, this, call it Free Cities, foundation that covers more than just free private cities, cover, covers also prosperity zones and autonomous zones, intentional communi- Communities. And there will also be a directory where we can, it's called Free Communities Directory or will be called like that, where people can look it up, what's available. I mean, it's not so many available, right? I mean, this is still a new, I would say market, it's, it's a new movement, but it's coming, the momentum is there and the need is there." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "05:38", "start": 338.49, "text": "Absolutely. And so I had a quick look on the, Free Communities website, so that's free-communities.org, and there's a few examples there Which is probably the one that most people would have heard of, or if they're familiar with the Free Cities Foundation, that's probably the one that most people know of. But there's a few others listed there that we've got, Libra Start, I believe that's the one in Norway. DIFC, which is interesting because I'm, I actually live in Dubai, so DIFC is actually interesting, and we've got the Free State Project, which I think a lot of libertarian people understand, or at least American libertarians know about the Free State Project. So I think I guess from your point of view, what are some of the best examples in your view of something that's, you know, it going, that's going to meaningfully increase the amount of liberty for people out there, out of, you know, some of those communities that we just spoke about?" }, { "speaker": "titus_gebel", "time": "06:33", "start": 393.4, "text": "Yeah, I think it's what's happening in Honduras, is clearly standing out because they have the legal basis to do that. But I would also mention the, the DIFC, because the DIFC is in so far Not a typical product what, what we would cover because they are more for try, let's try to increase business. But to do that, they had to offer more liberty and they had to offer a different legal system, they even had to offer a different court system, which makes it relatively close to what, what we are proposing, right? And in so far, o-others international financial zones have copied that model. In, in, in, Astana, for example, in Kazakhstan, then we, we have other, even in Africa There are some, things trying to, to copy that in Abu Dhabi. The, Abu Dhabi global market is a little bit modeled, after that, that, concept. But on the, on the, on the, on the fourth, so this is more from the coming from the traditional special economic zone side and say, hey, what can we improve to make it more attractive than a normal special economic zone? So, people coming from that side, from the business side, and we're coming from the, from liberty side, people want- want to create freer places, and there certainly Honduras is outstanding because over a relatively long period of nine years, they have made the Cedeño happen, they have made the, the constitutional amendments so that there isn't, or there was, a theory possibility to create a new society from scratch with global best practice legal ideas or government ideas, whatever. And, and that happened already in three cases, this is Prospera, Morazan and- And Okie Dea, whereas Okie Dea is more st- a standard special economic zone, there are mostly or just only one company producing there. So I would say if you want to go for the liberty project, it's Mo- it's Prospera first and foremost, and then Morassan came second. both have slightly different models, but extremely interesting. And there are others who want to fu- who are following in their footsteps, is the Guanahacabibes, intentional community, the Coral Beach Village, intentional community Both are on Honduran islands, one on Guanaja and the other on Utilla. And you might have heard that the socialist government now has, stopped the Cede Law, has, basically canceled it. But that doesn't mean that the existing cedes, which are grandfathered and have guarantees for fifty years, are immediately touched by that. But it means that you cannot create new Cede type of autonomy. But nevertheless Yes, we have two out of these projects that are very, in my view, look quite interesting. This is the Guanahacabins on, on, Guanahacabins Island and the Coral Beach Village on Utica, because on these islands they already have a kind of autonomous status. They, already have low taxes, free trade zones, it's called a tourist zone, I think. So, and they have a factual autonomy because they're just on the island, right? So you basically, you're left alone. And, and this together m-makes an environment what freedom-loving people probably like, and it's nice weather of course. And you can see that it's especially the islands, right, which are interesting. You have Sark Island in the Channel, in, in the English Channel, they already have an autonomy, and now they are opening up to more, to the, to the more freedom-oriented people and also want to s-to offer something to them. So, that might be, I mean, we have- We've seen this before, I don't know, three, four hundred years ago, when European first European immigrants go to the Caribbean islands, right? And later left them again to the U-- when the US was founded, and they went there. But this is, this is a development that is not so, I would say, surprising that people are looking for islands for greater liberty and, and more independence." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "10:43", "start": 642.62, "text": "Yeah. Interesting. And so, yeah, so there's a few, concepts we've gone through there. So As you were just saying, it's like setting up different structures that enable, you know, this parallel, society in a way, in a sense. and so I think when we're talking about these, and, it's actually interesting, perhaps it'd be interesting to talk about some of these also, even just from seeing the free community site, we can see the different projects there are listed against different things. So as an example, it'll say, you know, status guarantee. So as you said, the Z is, so these are Special zones, the ones that have already been created in Honduras, as you're saying, have that guarantee, whereas, in other instances, maybe that's not there. or another example here is criminal justice autonomy. So the idea, as I understand then, is you might have this zone which has your own rules and laws around business things, from a criminal perspective, it's still based on the broader country or the, I guess, sponsoring area, Yeah," }, { "speaker": "titus_gebel", "time": "11:46", "start": 705.92, "text": "but, but you have two things Here too. I mean, it may be that, like in Honduras, they have to take over Honduran criminal law, but still they have their own authorities to deal with that. And this is already a big improvement, right? I mean, we have seen that in, especially in Russia and former Soviet Union countries, they were using this criminal law to blackmail business people from the, from foreign lands, right? They're saying, \"Hey, we-- you are, accused of doing harm to the environment according to this and this and this.\" This is a, a criminal case, right? And which was-- But if you give us ten percent of your company, right? We're not going to follow that up, right? And, and so far this is important that you, that, that you don't fall into that trap. And ideally, you have your own crim-- criminal law, but this is often not politically feasible in a country that is your host nation. But if you can, if you take over their laws and apply them by own people, that is already a big step forward, right? Because you can then avoid corruption, you can Agency, you, you bring people from the outside, which, which already has the advantage that they aren't related to decision makers, they don't have some favors to give back, right? This is, this is in, especially in small countries, very, very difficult where everybody is somehow related or known to each other, and, and then being the chief judge, right? Who's the brother of the president, things like that, is very, very difficult, really. I mean, would be the same for us, right? Even in, in, in, in- In, in first world places like Monaco, right, the judges aren't from Monaco and the, and the, and the presidential guard also aren't, right? I mean, for a reason, right? These people, I mean, you need independent, decision making, you, you need independent, dispute resolution, and it's very difficult if you are related or friend of half of the government, right? And insofar the idea to bring people from outside or, or leave them where they are, like the- The Prospera Arbitration Center is a great idea. You have judges or pension judges from all over the world, from reputable places, and they're sitting at home and they're, they're making these online, online trials. But there's absolute guarantee that they have no stake in whatever happens in Honduras, right? Because they're not there, they have no relations. And I think this is, this is a model for the future, and other p-- other countries will, will pick that up. And by the way, that was the reason for the DIFC to import judges from, from- London and Singapore, so that they can show to the, to the investors, to the investment community, hey, these aren't some buddies of the prince or whatever, of the sheikh or sons, but these are independent people from other countries. And I think this is a good model." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "14:34", "start": 874.11, "text": "I see. And so the idea then is to try to slowly build up some momentum, that let's say businesses might want to come and set up there so that there are jobs and opportunities here. And then also people might wanna come because they wanna live there, because they wanna try out this model for living. so in terms of things like Prospera as an example, can you give us an idea, you know, how big is that, you know, in terms of people today, and, you know, w-w-what, what are some of the pathways that you see that it might grow?" }, { "speaker": "titus_gebel", "time": "15:07", "start": 906.72, "text": "Yeah, I think they are still in the beginning, they have, several hundred people or some hundred people that are living there or at least working there, but now that they have acquired this, insolvent golf resort, this is going to, to grow significantly. I think they can, we can have several thousand in the next years, and that was also the planning for Morazan, the other city, so that you would say several thousands, on the size, which is about four to five square kilometers, so it's not too big. But it's enough to build a kind of a city and, and, and have some, physical activity there. And then for Prosperity, there's another option, this is to become an, e-resident, that means an electronic resident. You, even if you're not there, you can apply for, for a kind of residency that en-enables you to, to come there for thirty days and, and found a company. So, that can be very interesting, and especially if they combine it with a banking system so that you-- Because this Today, setting up companies and having a bank account and then don't be overwhelmed by red tape or taxes. So this could be a real competitive advantage and, and Prosper is, is really focused on this kind of, let's create some businesses, let, let's make, business easy and, and then people are mostly from Honduras are, are have relocated there, the, the ones that are already there, and, and they're interested, right? Because, and, and, and I think- Many of the employers are companies from the US that are looking for remote workers who are qualified. So my observation is, Prospera is really so targeting middle class of Honduras, and of course, expats, whereas Morassan is more the lower class, unskilled workers and not so much experts. but it, it, I mean, this both have their justification and both show that this isn't just for the rich, right? Like people say, \"Hey,\" Private cities only for original, it's not true, because this is just a new governance model, right? And private doesn't only mean that's a private company that is running the show, but doesn't mean that you have to pay more, normally even less, and you get a better qu-uh, quality of service. And I think, they have shown that, and, now, interestingly, they were destroyed or they wanted to destroy them, two places in the, in, on Earth where they really- Trying out new governance models where they're really trying out innovative solutions, and the people who are wanting to shut this down, they call themselves progressives, right? I mean, this is, this, this is really a joke, right? Because this is something where you could have proven to the world, even with your leftist vote models, that it works, right? Just competition. We have three cities already, and each of them has a different governance model. So this is the best proof that... This isn't just for the rich or by just crazy libertarians from the US or Europe. No, no, this is a model, this is a alternative model, it's a competing model, and people should vote with their feet, and they should just see how this is, is unfolding. And the so-called progres-progressive people, their, their main argument was Honduras isn't for sale, right? I mean, this is populism at its best, but this is how the, how the world is, and this will not have been the last fight. But it, I think we- We must it-- must make it clear that this is progress and that this is voluntary participation. And before there was nobody living there, so there's no indigenous people have been robbed, robbed by the land. It's just untrue. Yeah, yeah, it's not true. Nobody has lived there, has been acquired on the free market by, by private property owners. So as it is usual in that country, right? According to the rules of that country. So, and, and this is, I mean, You, we, we are now used to that, and, and, and, and it will, it will probably be the same in, in the next projects and the, and the projects after. But I think it's important for people like you and, and your audience to understand that what we are offering, nobody's forced. It's a voluntary- A product you can buy by being there or just reject, like anything in the market, in the supermarket, you decide by yourself what you want, and the rules are known in advance. If you don't like it, stay where you are, right? And but it's, in my view, it's extremely necessary that we are having more and more of those projects because some will fail, undoubtedly, right? But the learning curve has to, has to start. At the moment, we have just one model. This is top-down state, and the differences are- Or is it just, is it the king? Is it the president or is it kind of a democratically elected government? But they have the same powers as the king. So actually, this is one model, top-down model. I don't want to be subject to that model any longer, so that's why I came up with the free private city idea. Other people have other ideas, and the interesting thing is that we are now really-- it's, it's, it's going to happen, right? And, and the, the free community is directly- That you mentioned is just a beta version, but I know there are many more intentional communities out there, and I hope that, I mean, the hard thing is really to negotiate a kind of autonomy with governments that is normally year-long affair. And I'm doing that currently in Africa and, and in, in the Caribbean. Other people are doing the same, and we hope that in the next, let's say, one to two years, two or three new pro-projects are popping up that have a similar of, out- Autonomy than Honduras. so far it's only Honduras, maybe DIFC that is granting a certain autonomy, others are only intentional communities There's one idea, there's a seed setting that is maybe also something very interesting or Liberland becoming a real state. You, but you can see there, there's a, there's a big momentum, and I think the most promising things is if you have an agreement with a government that g-gives you autonomy for a certain period of time. And if, and if this is there, there has been there before, right? So then, then I would say this is then the next, next level of, of living together." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "21:34", "start": 1293.99, "text": "Sure. Also, obviously many listeners of my show are interested in Bitcoin, so, perhaps you can tell us a little bit about the, Bitcoin story with, Prospera. As I understand, they have Bitcoin legal tender, and you could, if there's anything, you could tell us a little bit about how, how that came about and what, what that's looking like today." }, { "speaker": "titus_gebel", "time": "21:53", "start": 1312.88, "text": "Yeah, I have been, part of the Prospera team. I'm, I'm also an investor, or my company is an investor, and, and I've been part of the team, to create the legal framework, back in two thousand and seventeen to two thousand and nineteen. And then when the framework was approved, I withdrawn, went to other project, which I'm working on now. So I, I'm not up to date, I'm not part of the management, so, I can't make official announcement for Prospera, but a-as far as I" }, { "speaker": "titus_gebel", "time": "22:23", "start": 1342.54, "text": "Legal tender or you, at least you, you are allowed to use it. I think legal tender is difficult because they are still subject to, to Honduran sovereignty, but, they are allowed, by law that they can introduce own currencies, and they, that's what they did. They say, \"Hey, Bitcoin, you can pay everything with Bitcoin, especially the taxes that must be paid according to the Cede law.\" and, this means They can already transfer, if you want, the whole economy on, on Bitcoin, and this is also what we are at, my company is called Tipolis, that is also working as a for-profit company on making such projects happen. We're also at, advising some projects, and we also want to, want to have Bitcoin or want to in, let's say, want to promote Bitcoin as a, as a, as a currency. We aren't going to, to make anything legal Tender, we said it's free banking, you use whatever you want, but you can pay us in Bitcoin and we can, we have a lightning node maybe for our free private city or prosperity zone, and we're encouraging you, even for the small businesses, to use this app, to use this wallet, and to make the payments, and it's much easier, especially in places like Africa or the Caribbean, where many people don't-- do not have yet access to real bank accounts, they can leapfrog that development and say, \"Hey, I don't need a bank account, I have Everything on my mobile. And, and that is certainly something which can be very, very interesting. you can also produce your own electricity, if possible, for example, by hydropower, sometimes it's possible. And you, if you start a free private city, you have an abundance of energy in the beginning, right? Because there are only one hundred people there and you have already a one megawatt or whatever up and running because a turbine is just at a certain size, and then you can use that for Bitcoin mining, right? And then also counter the claims. Which you will get a lot of attacks in, in the upcoming months, with the energy thing because of the energy crisis, right? People, the, the government has fabricated that energy crisis by putting all their eggs into the renewables, which aren't reliable, okay? So now they have created an energy crisis, but they're using that crisis to, to go after Bitcoin and other things and say, \"You are using too much energy, we all have to save energy, so Bitcoin is evil.\" And a lot of people are go for that, right? So, and, and the, the, the The real answer would be, every, as more civilized a society is, the more energy it uses. That, that is a rule and has ever been a rule. So if we value a not manipulatable currency high like Bitcoin, we are, we are willing to spend some energy on it, and that's a fair thing, right? And there's an abundance of energy could be there if you would just, use nuclear energy for everything in the future, right? So that's not a problem. You are, you have created this problem by yourself. that-- but this is, I mean, reality is people suffer from the energy crisis, they see Bitcoin is using a lot of energy, so they go after Bitcoin, and politics will, will basically push that move, right? So this is what I, I fear for the next months or years. And so, if we can make a claim that we have an abundance of energy out of hydro, hydropower, then it's probably you can get away with that, but I'm expecting some attacks against Bitcoin" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "25:50", "start": 1549.96, "text": "Back to the show in a moment. 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You can see the price feed, you can see Bitcoin statistics, whether that's mining, network, Lightning, sats per dollar, you can see the Bitcoin magazine feed to see the latest articles, you can see things like the inflation rate and comparison versus other assets, or even things like the projected halving dates. All of this is available over at bitbo dot io, which is a great choice to bookmark or use as a homepage. And now back to the show. Of course. And also coming back to that question around setting up free cities in different formats, yep, I guess one idea is that you're making different jurisdictions available for people. So as an example, it could be that one free city is setting up and saying, \"You can set up with us and incorporate your entity here with us, and we'll give you, you know, low taxes or easy, like, easy setup of entities.\" So there's a little bit of a jurisdictional arbitrage game that people can play there. So as an example, it could be that there are Bitcoin entrepreneurs who wanna set up and incorporate their entity in one of these free cities. I'm wondering if you could offer any comment on that and the possibilities for that going forward." }, { "speaker": "titus_gebel", "time": "28:32", "start": 1712.09, "text": "Absolutely. I mean, we are even thinking about establishing a kind of a Bitcorp, so that is, is, is a company based on Bitcoin. So because we, I think we need new types of, of entities. What we're having now is normally the stock corporation, right? Or the- Personal entity and, now that new things are coming like the DAOs, we might also see, hey, is, is there something that can run completely on Bitcoin, including the capital of the company or whatever? So these are things we are definitely, considering and also want to, to create a, an advantage, a competitive advantage, for this, for the free city that, that is created or the, the, the, the- Zone that is created so that people who are in the crypto business, they have an incentive to come. But at the same time, we have also, we have always to look what is politically feasible in, first of all, in that particular country and second, worldwide, right? So you can't just say, \"Hey, there's no, no, zero no-AML,\" and then you get cut off from all international banking. So that's, that's a problem, right? So we, somehow, we have to make compromises, but what you can do if you, if you- Create a new free city environment. You can, you can, for example, look what is already existing in the world. So which are the places that have most freedom when it comes to financial transaction, when it comes to crypto transactions? And then you can say, we are adopting that. And if they, people come after you and say, \"But the Cayman Islands doing the same, this country is doing the same, Hong Kong is doing the same, Singapore is doing the same,\" and then it's diffi-more difficult for them to come after you and say, \"These are evil capitalists from, Aryan, whatever, right? And, and we can say, hey, we are just copy the model of this country, and, and so this is the way to go at the moment where you can just-- you have to remain within the framework that is there to a certain degree, but you can try to a bit push the borders to what is elsewhere possible, and you make a combination of the freest models everywhere and then combine it to a new model. So there is, there's a lot of things are already possible, and I think this is- What you said, right, this is a kind of a regulatory arbitrage, a competition between these new zones, yes, definitely, and that it should be like that, right? So that it's to your advantage, right? Who's offering the most freedom? Well, that's exactly what I want too, that, that I'm treated well and not who's, who's more basically creating more centralized global surveillance, right? That this is the, the other trend, and people are- Think this is a great thing? No, it's not. It's the absolute opposite. It, it's, it will be a world government will be hell, right? No more excise, no more competition, no more comparison. But so, and, and in so far we have really to do the, the people who are interested in, in, in, in thinking that freedom and self-termination isn't only a philosophical thing, but it's also on a philo-philosophical preference, but it's also the only way that the whole world can be lifted out of Poverty and, and create new things. We must fight against these centralized ideas, and fight doesn't mean violently. Fight in my proposal means creating better models that work better and that are then in demand, even from states who see, \"Hey, like the special economic zones, right? Every special economic zone is, is a confession of a state that obviously their own rules aren't the best, otherwise there wouldn't be no need for creating special economic zones.\" And what we are doing is the same next level, Special Economic Zone Plus. And, and that is, that can happen, that if these things in Honduras maybe are very successful, then neighboring countries in Central America might see, hey, we are copying that. And then suddenly you have a worldwide competition, and that can not necessarily take one hundred years, right? If you see in the nineteen sixties there were a handful of Special Economic Zones, and now we have five thousand, I mean, not all of them are active, but you can see- Say at least five hundred are really active, and why shouldn't we be able to repeat that again with, with free cities?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "32:55", "start": 1975.31, "text": "Of course. And so, yeah, hopefully we do see more of these things, come up. And, as you mentioned, there's this idea, and I think that's, that's really the theme of the upcoming conference. So let's chat a little bit about that. So it's called Liberty in Our Lifetime, and the theme is called Parallel Structures for Progress. So do you wanna tell us a little bit about why that theme?" }, { "speaker": "titus_gebel", "time": "33:15", "start": 1994.95, "text": "Yeah, because we, we wanted to show that it's not only about free cities, and, it's, Liberty in Our Lifetime means can we j- not just dream about the free society, but make it happen. And it's not only the political sphere, the governance sphere, it's, it's many other things. And we thought better than to fight existing systems is just to create something new, a parallel structure. And the most successful parallel structure That we have seen in the last years is Bitcoin and the blockchain, right? Has been created out of nothing, not, not out of nothing, but, but without any permit, without any announcement and, and vote on it? No, it's just been created and now it's there and it, it has been successful, right? I mean, if something is, is there for, a, a technological innovation is there for ten years and longer, it will remain, right? Because otherwise it had been already proven that it, it's this It's functional or it's, it's, there's no demand for it. And the fact alone that you have thousands of follow-up, follow-up products, or MeToo products, that shows that this is a success. And now I said, okay, financial Bitcoin is only one part of the financial sector, what about decentralized finance? So this is a big thing. The, then you have the media, you are an example, you have your own channel, which is an alternative to the existing mainstream media. Why is this? Because you and other people People said, \"There, we, we got only the same message out of the mainstream media, but we, we want to talk about other things. We have other ideas, we want to hear about new ideas. And that's why probably I assume, right, you started your channel and your podcast. And I said, that is a parallel structure in the media. Media is very, very important in today's, connected world. Next is then finance, we have Bitcoin, culture, we need films, education. Bitcoin is another point in our conference because today in universities, this isn't, what you expect from your university, that there's free thought, that there's free debate. Nope, there's safe spaces and people who have not the right opinion, they are kicked out, they're not, they're not even allowed to speak on university. So then we definitely need also parallel structures in that regard. And then on top of that, this is the most difficult one is Systems of living together, right? This is the governance, the political, the system side, and that is what where free cities come into play, and, and we are Following and we want with this conference, it's the sec-- the conference is the third time, but only the second time, for, for the public, second year, where we want to bring together all these projects, well, all who are interested, but most are, to present themselves, to ask, to, to, to answer questions, critical questions from the audience, to maybe promote their projects to, to get, to win settlers, investors, and businesses. So this is the idea. idea and to become bigger ev-every year to create a market of living together. And so this is of course the cornerstone of the conference are the free cities, the intentional community projects. So both cities will be represented in person. The chief of staff of Spark will be there, President Joel Bongar will be there, or at least online. Trey Goff, the chief of staff, will be there in person. Massimo Mazzone will be there, the chief of the Morazan city. Joe Kruk, the president of the Cisting in- Institute, Patry Friedman is there in person, even Duck Casey is dialing in and telling about his stories about how he wanted to make, to convince, African governments to bring their country public in the last thirty years. And newcomer projects are there that, like the ones, I mentioned before in Honduras, but we have also, even one in Germany. we have another one in Montenegro. So interesting things are, are coming there. And then we have on, on the other days, we have, discussions Questions about, the future of finance because it's very linked to this free city model. How can we make business and finance in our world? And of course, Bitcoin is a very big topic there that we will have Jeff Booth and other people, there, you will be there, Stefan. then we have from the education side, new models, Daniel Prince, Michael Strong. So I think for everybody who is really not just complaining and analyzing that everything is bad, but is, has passed this level And say, okay, now what can we do? Say, okay, this is your conference, right? Because we're only talking about what we can't be do. And of course, there will be some analysis, but this isn't the focus. The focus is really, we want to reach liberty in our lifetime, and if it's not in our lifetime, it's in the lifetime of the next generation. But if we aren't going to start something now, who else will, right? So, and I, I think the creation of Bitcoin alone is that this was possible and that this was possible. It's, it, it's fantastic, it's, it's nearly unbelievable. And if this is possible, why shouldn't other things be possible too? So we have to create parallel structures for progress because fighting existing system isn't enough. And it's also, you can't force people into something they don't really want, right? And insofar I say different model, we create a new structure, some people may, they like it, they come, and then the others watch from the outside and see, hey, maybe it's not such a bad idea. Yeah, maybe what people told us about libertarianism was propaganda. It's not true, alright? Even the poor people have a better living in those places. So this is my, my hope that this is coming out like that" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "39:08", "start": 2347.68, "text": "Yeah, and I think it's really good to see these ideas in practice. So I think that's, that's also important to see that there are people actually trying it. now I also understand that maybe in certain circumstances or certain ways of looking at it, you could say, \"Well, actually, it's hard to build that. How do you get people to sort of commit to it and actually live and go to it, right?\" So as an example, you know, I'm sure you know, years and years ago with the Free State project, right? So there was this idea to New Hampshire, and they're gonna set up there. And hey, I, I've never been, but I've heard it's, it's cool. I heard that, you know, they've got pork fest and they've got a whole bunch of libertarian people there. But then at the same time, there might be some libertarians who are like, \"Uh, I can't be bothered moving there,\" you know? Like, how do you sort of get enough people into the same place? Because here's the thing, right? All around the world, right? There's eight billion people on Earth Libertarian view and how do we get those people together?" }, { "speaker": "titus_gebel", "time": "40:10", "start": 2410.5, "text": "Yeah, that's an absolutely justified question. And, yeah, I mean, I think the Free State project was a good attempt, right? To say, let's first collect who, who might be interested. But you can see out of the twenty thousand that, that voted for, that opted for, \"Yes, we will move,\" only six thousand have moved, right? But I mean, that's, that's how people are. And six thousand is, is still a significant number. And then so far, one of these ideas Right? So the idea is we first meet on the internet and then we find a territory. this is a, this is one attempt, right? And, and the other is that I would say, let's take a country like Honduras, right? If you put up a zone based on libertarian principles, which is the case with Prospera and Morazan, then most people who are later worked there, they, aren't necessarily libertarians, but they just see, hey, this is a place that, that's working. The, the, the average Honduran Better salary, better security, no corruption, fair dispute resolution, and it's nice and clean. Hey, I like it, right? And without having all these libertarian viewpoints, they probably cannot repeat them, but they just, they're there for the results, and I think they will be also the defenders of such a system when it, when it comes to, when it comes to attack by the host nation or a political party, then these people will say, \"No, we like it, we want this to stay.\" And, and so far, it's not necessary to convince a majority, that libertarian principles are right, but you will over time, will achieve that, because people will say, okay, if I compare where I now live in the zone with the other state around me, I want to stay here. I like this model more. And over time, they will understand, we, we might teach them why this is the case, right? And then, people will find out for themselves. So I think it's definitely enough for the moment if we have, say, a- Five percent of people who are really convinced of the model, because, I mean, five percent of eight billion people, right, is four hundred million, correct? Four hundred million. This is extremely high number. It's enough, right? So we-- this is a good, good news is we don't need to convince a majority. If we have thousand people in a small state, they can make it, make a difference. They can make a difference, of a state of five hundred thousand people or so. So you can see that we have a good chance, like the free cities in the Middle Ages had, they were also a small minority, but they were like Venice, right? Or, or, or Pisa, or Genoa, or Florence, Hamburg, the Hanseatic League, Like, I mean, these were very, very powerful players at their time, despite just being a city, right? And, and we could also, what we are-- what's already starting, and also with the conference, we could talk to each other, we could exchange concepts, we can exchange goods, we can exchange ideas, we can support each other. And, and this is, this recognizing that the other model is maybe not exactly the same, but we're all driven by the same. We want to be allowed to try out new things. Things you want to increase freedom and we want to increase prosperity for everyone. So, and the other people who are thinking the same, they are our allies, natural allies. And so my hope is that we are, we are a tiny fraction of Of what's happening in the world, but starting with Honduras, I mean, there's more to come. I know that other people are rela- there are rumors here, well, I'm one of those projects that might come up, hopefully, in the next year, or within the next twelve months. But there are other groups that are also working in Africa and the Caribbean where I, I have heard that they're very advanced. So we might get two or three new Honduras type of models, and then we have real competition. Then it's not just within one country, but then we have real competition, and then people can start, like you can start to compare, and you can invite all the leaders of those projects and say, \"Now make your pitch, tell me why I, Stephan Livera, should move, right? \" And that's exactly what-- I mean, it's not easy to move, right? You are where you are, and you have all made your arrangements there, and maybe people have their family, their ancestry there, and now you tell them, \" This is difficult, right? Yeah, and you were telling me move to another con-continent, even more difficult. So that means we have to really offer something, and, this is good, right? We have to, we have to try to find new, new customers and not the other way around that you, the state just says, \"You do whatever I say, and if I need money, I raise taxes.\"" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:58", "start": 2698.5, "text": "Right, and I think I would say over the last few years, perhaps there are more people who've opened their eyes to this idea that, hey, you know what, maybe I would move overseas. I mean, I, you know, I'm, I'm an example, right? I, I was living in Australia and I left because of the, the hysteria of the last few years and thought, you know what, maybe there are other people out there who are in a similar camp, and maybe they're like, you know what, I'm open to this, I'm open to finding some other jurisdiction You know, do whatever. so I think that's really interesting. I'm, you know, I'm obviously, I'm looking forward to going. I'm, I'm gonna be a speaker there. and I'm al-al-also looking forward to meeting a bunch of people. So there's some people who I've, you know, only spoken with online, so like yourself or, Jeff Dye, so I've only spoken with him online. I, I'd love to actually meet him in person. So I know he's coming as well, and he's, he You know what? What if we let some-- these larger states split up into smaller states, and maybe there's more, More freedom that can be achieved in that way, and so I think it's, it's a, it's a mix of people and ideas, and you need enough people out there who are actually sharing some of these ideas to get just people, brought on board. And, and I think to your, to your point as well around, maybe there's something here as well that, I'll give you an example. I think a lot of people who came into Bitcoin la-later learned about Austrian economics and libertarian ideas from that, and so it might even be the case That actually people come in and start holding Bitcoin, using Bitcoin, and then getting exposed to more libertarian ways of thinking, and then thinking, \"Yeah, you know what? Actually, there is something here. Maybe we really could build some kind of more libertarian-based society.\" So I think, there's a, there's an angle there of where people might- First start with Bitcoin or start, you know, attending a conference like this, and then later, realizing, oh, okay, yeah, actually, there's something I can do in practice." }, { "speaker": "titus_gebel", "time": "47:09", "start": 2829.02, "text": "Absolutely. And, and my personal observation is that I would say from, from the people who really following what, what we are doing, the Free Cities movement, half of them are probably coming from the libertarian side, but the other half are coming from, from the Bitcoin, crypto side. Why is this so? Because these people immediately understand Well, at least the ones that are following us immediately understand, hey, that could, could work, because they have seen that it already worked once creating a parallel structure with Bitcoin, against the fiat currencies which were Supposedly not working, right? Otherwise there wouldn't be no demand for Bitcoin. And the same is true with our systems of living together. So people realize that, and, and, and I would say what, what you said before, it's also true in the last two years, with all the lockdowns and all that, a lot more people have come to us and say, \"Hey, when are you starting? Where can we move? We, we want to get out.\" And especially in countries like Germany, who are deliberately destroying the industrial basis, they make energy so expensive that businesses Close and to move out. So now it's not only people who are pissed off the state, but even businesses, whole businesses, whole companies want to move out, and they don't want to move into a state where they say next year they might get similar ideas like the German government, right? So where can I have-- and, and this is what, what many people don't understand, it's not only about taxes. A company can pay taxes, but it's much more about long-term security, right? You have to re-rely upon the fact that the, the rules aren't going to change significantly in the next ten to twenty or thirty years because you're making investment on that assumption. And that's what one of the main points of, of the, the, the free city or the free private city model is that we're offering you a contract and we can't change it. Contract unilaterally, and that's Prospera doing, right? Prospera, you, you don't have only the protection by the charter, you have an additional protection by a, by a resident contract which says, these are the rights that we cannot take away from you, and we're not going to change the rules. So this is great because this is exactly what, I mean, you, if you hire somebody To paint your room now in another color, color, you don't want this guy then to come later and say, \"By the, by the way, I used a much more expensive color and I repaired your car as well, isn't it?\" I didn't order that, right? But that's exactly what the state is doing. And, and so far, I think our model is superior. We just need some time to deploy it, and there will be some setbacks, no doubt about that. But at the end, people go where they are treated best, and that's what we want to offer. The, the, the, the, conference is last year's conference. Like you said, people, some people have met for the first time, but they weren't con-contact before, and I can sa- tell you that at least two new projects are, were coming out of those people meeting at our conference. And I hope that this will repeat this year, that good people are meeting each other and saying, \"Hey, let's do something together.\" they're helping each other, they're creating even a new project. So, i-it is also extremely mor- I'm already waiting to see people in, in, in physical presence and, and, and all intelligent people, they have all, ideas, they aren't just repeating second-hand opinions, they have all their own opinion, right? And, and they can argue that opinion. This is a kind of- Very, it makes me feel very, \"Wow, this is a place I want to be, and this is-- I thought it was lost, but it's still there, it's there again.\" And this is really giving people, and most, most attendees felt like a, a really good feeling, and I hope we can repeat that in October in Prague." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "50:57", "start": 3057.36, "text": "Right. And I think it comes down to, it's just a big world out there, and so even though there's a lot of statists out there, there's also a small number of libertarians and bitcoiners out there who do About it, and it's a matter of connecting those people, right? Because when you add that up, that could be a hundred million, two hundred million people, and if you could get a critical mass into one or a few liberty-friendly locations, that could really move the needle. That could really change things. And so, I, you know, I, I hope, you know, people come along. I'm, I'm obviously excited to be going. We should, mention, yeah, so do you wanna just chat a little bit about the details then? So it's Website is lifetimeliberty dot com, and, I've got a discount code as well, so code Livera gets you a discount there, so listeners make sure you, check that out. Titus, anything else you wanna mention just as a, I guess, a final message or any, final, closing thoughts for people?" }, { "speaker": "titus_gebel", "time": "51:55", "start": 3115.28, "text": "Yeah, if you cannot attend the conference, there's a possibility for an online attendance at a, a, a much discounted rate. and in any case, if you are interested in this whole development, especially maybe you're considering moving to one of those new, places, then my, my proposal would be that you subscribe to the newsletter of the Free Cities Foundation, freeminercities dot org, because any- Any new project will be presented there, and if we think that makes sense, then there will be a link, and then you can go to the website of the program, of the project, and say, \"Hey, maybe this is the place for me to go.\" so that is, we are starting this community, and, I think, as you said, Stephan, we need the critical mass of people who are willing to relocate, and if you are, you, listeners are interested in that or can think about that, then I invite To subscribe to the newsletter, learn about the projects, and then make you a call." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "52:59", "start": 3179.41, "text": "Fantastic. Well, great chatting with you, Titus, and looking forward to seeing you soon." }, { "speaker": "titus_gebel", "time": "53:04", "start": 3183.61, "text": "Was a pleasure." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "53:05", "start": 3184.95, "text": "So get the show notes over at stephanlivera dot com. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the citadels." } ] }