Harder Brexit: How I became a citizen of Bitnation
Let’s face it, Britain’s going to the dogs. Brexit is a financial suicide note, the weather’s becoming more erratic than Trump’s tweets, even Bake Off is a thin slice of its former self. So I’ve enrolled as a citizen of the “world’s first virtual nation”, a nation that replaces borders with blockchains. I’ve emigrated to Bitnation.
Bitnation calls itself a “blockchain jurisdiction” and rejects the “one-size-fits-all model, restrained by the current nation-state-engineered geographical apartheid, where your quality of life is defined by where you were arbitrarily born”.
To be honest, I’m pretty sure my new nonhomeland isn’t officially recognised by anyone other than itself. I rang the Foreign Office’s press team to enquire whether Bitnation was on its radar, but they’ve not got back to me. Maybe I’ll get one of our embassies ( pcpro.link/278nation) to give them a call. Although the nearest one appears to be within the Digital Leadership Institute in Belgium. That’s all we need… another tricky conversation with Brussels.
Anyone can sign up to be a citizen – there’s a form on the website, and we don’t seem fussy about who we let in. There appear to be around 400 Bitnation citizens who live in the country formerly known as Britain, and judging by the directory, most of us appear to be men. Repopulating this fine nation of ours could be something of a challenge.
Still, we’re a forward-thinking bunch. We might have fewer citizens than Stockport, but we’ve got our own space agency ( spacechain.org). Part of our mission is to “develop new and cheaper space vehicles” – which is just as well, as the agency’s last attempt to crowdfund a mission didn’t exactly fly… It fell short of the 1,000,000 Swedish Krona target by precisely 989,708 Krona. One small step and all that.
Still, if you’re fed up of life in May’s Britain and want to join me in the Media Holon, you can find me at
It’s your turn to put out the bins.
Blockchain-based smart contracts will conceivably allow devices to manage themselves