Comment by Aspos | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Aspos | Hacker News Reader

If they will manage to get recognized and get a UN membership they will instantly have a ton of ways of making money.

Flag of convenience for ships and airplanes -- millions and millions annually. Mongolia has a huge merchant fleet. Thousands of commercial airplanes are registered in Bermudas.

Own top-level domain name -- if they will get creative naming their country they may land a popular domain.

Driving licenses -- Would love to pass all the rigorous tests to get an extra drivers license which I could use when traveling abroad.

Passports -- assuming they will implement all the necessary measures to filter out crooks, they can start offering 2nd citizenship. Second passport is super valuable to those who travel a lot.

Orbits and space in general -- valuable resource!

WTO quotas and re-export -- uh, oh!

Etc., etc., etc.

Becoming a recognized country opens a lot of opportunities.

They just need to crowdsource a few more billions and persuade neighboring countries to recognize them.

Are they within Belize's territorial waters? If so, all they did was tantamount to buying a plot of land, albeit one surrounded by water.

Belize could recognize them and allow it. Will they I don't know, but they can.

> Second passport is super valuable to those who travel a lot.

Only if you can actually enter somewhere with that Passport. That's why an US/EU passport is way more valuable than a Belize one. Their passport would require an entry visa everywhere to start with.

>>They just need to crowdsource a few more billions and persuade neighboring countries to recognize them.

The billions will be needed to bootstrap their infrastructure.

What infrastructure? They don't need too many people living there to manage all these. A landing strip, a pier, couple houses for the maintenance team. A bungalow and a bar for their parliament.

"By December 2019, the group's aspirations became reality, raising over $250,000 to complete the purchase of Coffee Caye, a 1.2-acre, uninhabited island off the coast of Belize"

Good luck putting any of that on a single acre

They have a 1.2-acre anchoring point to build an elevated platform with a pier and a landing strip.

BTW, USS Harry S. Truman may get retired soon. That would give them plenty of space for anything.

"And I don't know about you," says Mayer, "but I certainly can't afford to buy an island on my own!"

Again, best of luck to them. They had to crowdfund $250,000 for the tiny piece of land, they're a LONG way from being able to do anything ambitious with it. That takes DEEP pockets that they themselves admitted to not having.

It'll be a fun little campsite for a few years though, until it's underwater. Then it's just a heck of a story to tell at the bar.

Yep. Sounds like most of the investors have spent the cost of a mid range Caribbean holiday for a permanent spot to pitch a tent or build a hut alongside other people that think it's a fun idea. If you see it in that context rather than as an investment, its quite good fun.

> USS Harry S. Truman may get retired soon

That sounds like a project for letsbuyanaircraftcarrier.com . No island necessary :)

And if they don't have nukes, any country with 'real[politik] sovereignty' can knock them out at any time.

The missile to knock them out would cost more than to buy the island outright.

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