If it's not a scam it sure looks a lot like one:
Funding
We are funding the Marinea Project primarily through the sale of memberships and the purchase of Sea-Notes.
The funds needed to complete phase 1 is $15M
A Sea-note is a measure of membership currently set at $100. The proceeds will be used to create our floating base of operations. Once the base is established, further funds and profits will be used to foster R&D through seed grants and resource support of entrepreneurs willing to test out their products and claims out on the sea.
You may of course purchase as many Sea-Notes as you wish. To be used either for citizenship when the time comes, as a discount on Marinea partner products and services, or as an investment in a new industry, or maybe just because you want to see this project happen and have your name written in the book of the founders as a moment in history. Whatever your reason, we want to thank you for all your support, both financial and by telling your friends about Marinea.
https://marinea.org/phase1/#howI'm one of the board members and I can say it's not a scam. I'm just the IT guy so I can't say this is the best funding strategy but we went through many different iterations of trying to come up with funding. Being an international company that will not be based in a single country we started hitting legal walls. Initially we were going to sell shares and provide dividends but that would bring in all sorts of difficulty with any US investors which cuts out a major block of funding.
Our marketing guy seems to think people would be willing to pay $100 for potential citizenship and discounts down the road or just because they're excited about the possibility. But as an investor myself I do not see the return on investment that would be worth it.
We considered creating an alt coin and using that as the currency on the seastead but considering people on the seastead can buy things in the US with bitcoins a lot easier than using some alt, and bitcoin has worldwide use I suggested against yet another alt coin.
It is a good incremental solution though. Most proposals are looking for $200-$300 million for a huge final community without any stages of testing before then.