Edit: Based on popular demand from reddit, I’ve created /r/xnation for further discussion of using wealth from the Bitcoin economy to build an independent nation comprised of seasteading communities in international waters.

I spent my free time in 2010 and 2011 cranking out a speculative fiction novel, and during that time I indulged in a lot of early-morning journaling and daydreaming to generate raw material.

Turns out that, when allowed to roam freely, my brain returned again and again to libertarian utopian fantasies. And in my libertarian utopian fantasy lands, two things cropped up again and again: Bitcoin and seasteading.

I’ve learned it’s risky to talk about Bitcoin and seasteading too freely in mixed company. Better to use them as material for my science fiction. Serious interest in either topic comes across as a bit unhinged to the average person. Even here in the Bay Area, full of dreamers and doers and out-of-the-box thinkers, both topics are fringe.

So it’s been excellent to see Bitcoin creeping toward the mainstream in the two years since I first heard about it. If seasteading can manage to enter the mainstream, too, I’ll be over the moon. Maybe then I can admit in mixed company that I have my own version of Elon Musk’s goal to be the first person to die on Mars:

To use my Bitcoin billions to build the first seasteading nation.