I just thought I would post a thread here as I have an interest in Bitcoin and seasteading. For those that have never heard of it, seasteading is taking the concept of homesteading to the ocean. If your floating home is 12 nautical miles away from a nation's shore, you are not subject to most of the nation's laws outside of mineral rights, oil, and a few other things. 200 nautical miles from any nation and there is are no national laws.
The idea pushed by the Seasteading Institute is that if we set up several of these seastead communities, we can experiment with new forms of government which can rise or fall based upon how good the new government works. With current governments there is not much competition. With thousands of seasteads competing for residents that can pick up and move to a new seastead, there will be innovation in government.
A sound idea also pushed and generally accepted is that the first seasteads will likely be protected by a host nation initially so that we can work through the engineering constraints first before moving further and further out to sea. The Seasteading Institute has partnered with French Polynesia to begin building the world's first seastead in the protected waters of one of their larger islands. The hope is that they will begin building a large structure some time in 2019. Cost estimates for the initial structure have been somewhere in the $30-$50 million range, with each person needing about $500k to $1 million to live there.
My own plan, which is a slight deviation from their plan, is to start small and modularly (not likely a real word). I would also like to start in a protected waterway initially. But I recognize that most people cannot afford such a high price, and their system does not leave much room for picking up your home and floating to a new seastead if you want to. My goal is to follow the tiny house trend initially and build a small modular floating structure that I can keep under $20k for the base price (plus cost of solar panels, water maker, composting toilet, etc.). Basically enough living space as a small boat, but unlike a boat you can attach these units together for more and more living space as can be afforded.
The rise in the bitcoin price has accelerated my plans and at a certain price point I will likely quit my job and pursue this full time. I am not here looking for funding, investment or even a hand out. I have been working on my design for several years now. I have created computer models of it and will focus next on finding the most structurally sound design as possible while keeping it economical. My initial plan will be to move to a low cost country, likely in Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, etc.), maybe French Polynesia (more expensive), and work on building my prototype. I will then move it to the ocean and test in a protected waterway, living in the smallest unit to learn and improve the design.
I will be doing this no matter what. I will share my journey with those that are interested and I hope that once I have something proven, people will want to join my journey and become pioneers in this new industry.
A good forum where seasteading is discussed in grave detail can be found here:
https://discuss.seasteading.org/Do not presume to think that I have not considered some obvious thing about living on the ocean or building a seastead or some knee jerk reaction such as waves or pirates. If you go to the seasteading forum you will see that there have been discussions on there back as far as 2008 (when I first got involved) and there is discussion (mostly arguments) about just about every minute detail that may come up. Mostly discussions about things that do not need to be considered until we are 200 nm from any nation.
What are your thoughts on seasteading? Is it something you would consider doing at some point in your life? What do you like/not like about the concept?
Here is a high level overview of my design that I put together a few years ago. I have since improved upon that initial design but the concept is still similar.
https://discuss.seasteading.org/t/my-viva-vivas-seastead-design/921/2