Utopian thinking is everywhere out of favor, except in the libertarian fantasies of crypto enthusiasts who dream of a world free from the regulatory state, law, and all other forms of external authority. Hucksterism and hostility to collective life are this movement’s defining features. The worldview underlying it is embodied nowhere more literally than in the schemes to exit from the territorial jurisdiction of the nation-state prevalent throughout the history of libertarianism. Crypto luminaries have even sought to buy and govern islands, using oceans to separate themselves from taxes and democracy.

Satoshi Island — named after the alleged creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, and located in the southwest Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu — is the most recent creation of crypto’s venture capitalists. “A real-life private island dedicated to the crypto community,” reads the promotional material. Measuring some eight hundred acres (just over one square mile), Satoshi Island is at this point almost entirely rainforest. Its main attraction: a rare species of giant coconut crabs. Other than flora and fauna, Satoshi boasts a small coastal clearing and a large house on its western edge facing the archipelago’s largest island, Santo. If plans go ahead, the tropical paradise will not remain pristine for long. Would-be crypto colonizers hope to transform the island into a “sustainable smart city.”

Much of the island’s promotional material, with its claims of private ownership and Satoshi citizenship, is misleading. Citizenship, for example, suggests Satoshi Island will be its own state and can confer political rights to its inhabitants. That is not the case. Rather, citizenship in this instance is a catchy way of acknowledging that you own one of the 21,000 Satoshi Island NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and thus can access the island community. But you would still need to hold a valid passport from another country in order to first enter Vanuatu, and no form of Vanuatu citizenship is attached to the island NFT.