But for Grant Romundt, Rüdiger Koch, and Chad Elwartowski, those things didn’t matter. All they wanted was a place free from outside governmental control, and their crypto-brains told them that such a place would be the great wide sea. So when the pandemic hit the cruise ship industry like a hurricane, these “seasteading” enthusiasts scored on the sale of the Pacific Dawn, an eleven-decker ship they promptly renamed the Satoshi after crypto creator(s) Satoshi Nakamoto. Of course, their venture failed miserably because no one apparently told them just how tightly regulated the high seas actually are. The cabins of their Bitcoin boat didn’t sell – oh, yeah, they literally wanted to add a B-shaped platform to the ship for agriculture and manufacturing … things — and the guys didn’t have a clue how a cruise ship even operated, leaving it all to the Captain who had to tell them they needed a myriad of certificates and official papers just to get out of the harbor.
It should probably be mentioned here that these guys were inspired to go (bit)coin at sea by the Seasteading Institute, a company that aims to build “floating societies with significant political autonomy” but has yet to add a successful project to its name. And by floating societies, they’re actually talking about startup companies who will “enrich the poor, cure the sick, feed the hungry,” as their website so boldly states. It’s a think tank, where tech guys make money for throwing their ideas around and calling themselves “seavangelists,” all in the name of empowering others — even those who think freedom is a shitty floating hotel.