SVET Reports
Liberland Review and Rating
I want to take a break from my usual line of sticking to DLT business and underlying protocols and review and rank a country (or to be exact a "micronation").
Name is "Liberland" and some of us might had heard about it back in April 2015 when 32-years-old (at that time) political activist from Czech Republic Vít Jedlička "proclaimed the Free Republic of Liberland on what he considered an unclaimed land lot (terra nullius) known as Siga between Serbia and Croatia." (wiki)
My attention was drawn back to this project in April 2019 when they announced the trading of Liberland's "native currency" Merit (LLM). After that I almost forgot about this project again until most recently, when they re-appeared in this February in Anarchapulco ("a conference for Voluntaryist thinkers and activists held annually in Acapulco, Mexico").
I'll use "Vision" (Singularity- Volume- Empathy- Timeline) sub-scale for this one.
There are currently (according to Google) 67 separate micronations most famous among which are, probably, Christiania (a thousands-people-strong 19 acres commune in Copenhagen) and Sealand (a North Sea offshore platform in about 7.5 mi off the Suffolk - England's east coast).
So the competition is, kinda steep on this market. However, from all those "nations" almost all are hardly count for more than its initiator(s) and his / her family members. At the same time Liberland, according to its site has 1000 citizens and more than 500,000 applicants.
Additionally, it's the one which, probably, have received a more publicity than any other thanks to their pushy PR and a straight-forward business strategy. Hence, "Singularity" is "b".
Of course, it's hard to estimate the "demand" for the new libertarian country :) However, according to UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) there were 65.6 million individuals worldwide in 2017, which have been "forcibly displaced because of persecution, conflict, violence, or human rights violations". That's almost equal to France total population. Hence, I would count it as "high" and rank "a" on "Volume" side of the rating.
Also, as practically everywhere across the world (G20 specifically) countries' politicians have almost completed their conversion into country's permanent "managerial class" the rest of population feel itself socially and economically ostracized, which lays the strong foundation for expression of sympathy towards all types of non-orthodox political ideas and solutions. However, in regard to Liberland this expression might be tented by evident "business character" of this venture. "Empathy" is "b".
As to the "Timing" I believe it to be significantly off ("c"). Although many legal loopholes in the international laws allows individuals to proclaim "nations", "countries" and "kingdoms" almost as they wish, under current geopolitical conditions only after official recognition of nuclear weapons wielding states (well, all of the rest just follow suit, usually) citizens of the libertarian dream might be issued entries visa (and that all what counts, right? :)
Result "Vision" (Singularity- Volume- Empathy- Timeline): b/a/b/c
I continue to review Liberland on "Execution" (Solution- Validity- Equity- Team) sub-rating.
As I've mentioned in my previous review the Liberland's business model is pretty simple, which means they take $100 for issuing e-residency. That's the exact number of dollars the prospect nationals of Sealand were paying for their "passports" applications (it was also accompanied by selling coins and stamps as well as titles of nobility).
Sealand founders, reportedly, earned about 2–3 million dollars a year this way from about 100–200 thousands applicants. Given that Liberland (according to their own site) has had about 500,000 applicants to the date I estimate their revenue to be roughly the same if no more. "Solution" is "b".
Extract (wikidot): "One of the most utilized loopholes is the Treason Act of 1495 which states that "An Acte that noe person going wth the Kinge to the Warres shalbe attaynt of treason." (Preamble) This is generally interpreted by scholars as any person acting as the de facto sovereign in a member state of the Commonwealth of Nations will be considered the monarch and it is thus illegal to deny their reign."
Extract (wikidot): "Secondly, international agreements and treaties confirm that micronations have a right to sovereignty. The Atlantic Charter reads: 'respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live.' This was signed by the US, the UK and many other nations in 1941."
Surprisingly, then, "Validity" might be as high as "a" :) I haven't, however, seen any reliable confirmation of Liberland legality / non legality. It's a very tricky issue. It makes it "c+" then.
As to Equity I didn't particularly liked the fact that the word "finance" is mentioned only 3 times in Liberland Constitution. And only once with regards of the business procedure: "The Annual Budget shall be financed from the State Treasury maintained by the Department of Treasury."
At the same time, there's nothing in this Constitution which allows citizens (let alone external parties) an unmitigated access to Liberland's financial records. Jedi's business as usual :) Consequently, I can't sate positively or negatively on the "Equity". Hence we'll make it "c" until further clarification.
As to the "Team", it's one of the most important ingredients of Liberland business strategy. They claim representation in more than 60 countries (their site information kinda confirms that by providing names and emails of all representatives).
Judging by Liberland's YouTube channel and Facebook group almost all of its national budget is spend to finance numerous "ambassadors" (includes several exceptional individuals but mostly former gov bureaucrats) international trips, events participation and expensive hotels :)
Well, apparently, their plan is to take Liberland's independence from the cold grasping hands of G20 diplomatic representatives exhausted on thousands cocktail parties during the next 20 years or so. Nonetheless, "Team" is "a-".
Result for "Execution" (Solution- Validity- Equity- Team): a/c+/c/a-
Next in the list is Liberland "Tokenomics" (Sustainability- Value -Engagement- Transactions).
As I've mentioned in previous review they issued their own token - Liberland Merit (LLM) - in April 2019. The message published on bitcointalk says: "A total of 700.000.000 (seven hundred million) Merit will be created over the course of 10 years. … To celebrate this milestone in the history of Liberland, a limited amount of 50.000 LLM is being offered at reduced price of 0,95 BTC per 5000 LLM … "
It made it $1 for one LLM at the time of issuance. Most recent price of LLM is $ 0.011365. That doesn't look good at all. Additionally, LLM could be found on only one exchange and the volumes are miserable. Not to mention that there's no information what so ever about wallets to hold LLM. Besides, the usability of LLM under current Liberland Constitution is like zero. Hence, "Value", "Transactions" and "Engagement" are all "c".
As to "Sustainability" it's actually may be ranked at "b-" level, given that Liberland has an independent from its coins sources of constant revenues part of which might be used to maintain LLM prices in the future (if, of course, libertarian "authorities" decided some day to do so).
Result for "Tokenomics" (Sustainability- Value -Engagement- Transactions): b-/c/c/c
I'm completing Liberland's review by ranking it on "System" (Security- Velocity- Engineering- Transparency).
Actually, there's no much to say about that because all what is known from the external sources about their "system" is the following: "The first Liberland Merit's have been tokenized with use of the Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP or "a simple token system for the Bitcoin Cash network allowing anyone to create tokens in a permissionless manner" (wiki)) on top of BitcoinCash (BCHABC)" (source bitcointalk). Of course, white paper is not available as well.
That moves "Security", "Velocity" and "Engineering" to 'c' until further clarification.
As to "Transparency", we have a couple of dozen pages long document to refer to - "The Constitution of the Free Republic of Liberland". This biggie by itself deserves a separate review. Meanwhile, all I can say is that everything in this Constitution is buried under the pyramid of "departments", "representatives" and "cabinets". Naturally, I've expected better from people claiming the status of the first libertarian nation in making, which, according to their official representatives, is heavily leveraging blockchain in its activities.
On the other hand, they also stated that: "We are starting experimental democracy project on Aragon DAO (an Ethereum dApp to create and manage a decentralized organization) for voting and raising question about design of Liberland" (referring to Liberland Architecture's FB page as of August 2019).
After six months have already passed, we are still to see the tangible results of this attempt for Liberland's decentralization. Nonetheless, I have to reflect it positively in the rating. Hence, "c+".
Result for "System" (Security- Velocity- Engineering- Transparency): c/c/c/c+
Liberland SVET Rating: C/B/B/C+