According to a New York Times recent article, an impressive number of influential people in the crypto and blockchain market are relocating to Puerto Rico in a movement baptized as Puertopia.
Lead by the director of the Bitcoin Foundation, the controversial ex-child actor and World of Warcraft gold miner Brock Pierce, the movement is making some prominent people sell their properties in California and move to the new utopian crypto-land of, so-called by their idealizers, Sol (also known as Puerto Rico). Other Sol pioneers include Bryan Larkin, a Bitcoin miner and chief of the Blockchain Industries, who mined about $2 billion; Reeve Collins, whose ICO for BlockV, kind of an app store for the blockchain, raised more than $20 million, with tokens worth about $125 million; co-founder of Tether, whose tokens are worth $2.1 billion; and Matt Clemenson, co-founder of the lottery.com, a blockchain solution for lotteries.
Their GQ is currently a 20,000-square-foot hotel called the Monastery, one of the few places in San Juan untouched by the recent devastating Hurricane Maria.
According to the hedge fund manager Robb Rill, they are willing to initially buy 250,000 acres so they can build their own city. Puertopians stated they are intending to do it very fast. Clemenson said he sees Puerto Rico as a “mistreated hidden gem”, an “enchanted island which they will work to make right.”
The Puerto Rican government, which is facing economic issues for years, seems to be receptive toward their new citizens. The governor will speak at the planned blockchain summit conference Puerto Crypto, in March.
Puerto Rico, with a population of 3.7 million, shares the armed forces, a stock market, currency, and citizenship with the US, but has no federal personal income taxes, no capital gains tax and advantageous trading taxes. Pierce though, affirms their primary goal is not to avoid taxes. He’s tuned to a “higher calling”, according to the crypto investor Kai Nygard. He promised to create a new token called ONE with $1 billion of his own pocket, which would serve for charitable purposes. Quoting Pierce, “If you take the MY out of money, you’re left with ONE”.
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