The “Network State” movement, described by its detractors as a “cult,” is an ideological movement that seeks to create privately owned, anarcho-capitalist, “autonomous” communities. One such community, the Republic of Liberland, recently made two announcements that its denizens seem to think are quite exciting: 1) Liberland has a new “prime minister” in the form of crypto billionaire Justin Sun, and 2) the bold explorers of Liberland plan to express their collective spirit of adventure by planting a flag on an asteroid.
First, the Sun thing. Sun, who is the founder of the Tron blockchain and is so rich that he once bought (and ate) a $6 million banana, was actually voted in as Liberland’s PM last October. Since then, it’s not entirely clear what Sun has been doing, although the community appears to be pushing for greater legitimacy and political influence. Liberland, whose community was originally founded in 2015, actually lays claim to an area of physical land between the borders of Serbia and Croatia, although Croatian border police are, according to Wired, not known to recognize the settlement. Its community is tied together largely by libertarian sentiments and an affinity for crypto. Wired writes:
Over the years, Liberland has been funded in large part by wealthy crypto donors, attracted by the prospect of a state built around the same libertarian principles on which crypto was founded. Liberland has itself released two crypto coins—one as a medium of exchange and the other for voting in elections—and developed its own national blockchain.
Alternative economic systems may be an overarching theme, but lately, Liberland’s biggest priority seems to be launching its brand into outer space. This brings me to the fledgling country’s other exciting development: its mission to plant a flag on an asteroid.
To be clear, Liberland has already planted a flag in space—although the flag sounds like it may have been more akin to an NFT than an actual flag. Indeed, according to the micro-nation’s website, a version of its flag was planted on the moon in March by a mission flown by Firefly Aerospace, an American rocket company. However, the flag is described as being “part of a digital artifact collection housed within the LifeShip Pyramid.” Not familiar with the LifeShip Pyramid? It’s a “specially designed capsule ensuring its [contents] preservation in the Moon’s harsh environment.” LifeShip, itself, is a company whose primary service is to collect a swab of your saliva, extract your DNA, and then send it to the moon.
Stop me when your brain starts hurting.
Anyway, the “digital artifact collection” thing makes Liberland’s moon flag sound somewhat dubious, but the country also has another lunar mission scheduled to occur at some point in the next few months: “A second lunar mission is scheduled later this year, again carrying a physical Liberland flag to reinforce our symbolic mark on the Moon,” the nation’s website says. The nation also has plans to plant a flag on an asteroid. “Liberland is embarking on its most daring adventure yet: a commercial Lifeship mission to a near-Earth asteroid,” the website says. “On this mission, the Liberland flag—bearing engravings of citizen names—will travel into deep space, marking the first commercial asteroid mission to carry a national flag, and highlighting our pioneering spirit.”
If all of this sounds really cool to you, there’s still a chance for you to get your name engraved on that asteroid flag by giving Liberland money (registered residents can qualify if they donate $2k to the cause), or, if you’re not a Liberland denizen, by registering to be one by September 4th. Gizmodo reached out to Sun and the Free Republic of Liberland for more information.
The Liberlanders’ website makes them seem almost cute in their preoccupations with bloodless (largely digital) colonialism, but there’s a sense beneath it all that these are people with way too much money and time on their hands. Indeed, planting a flag on an asteroid actually sorta seems like a good metaphor for the Network State movement writ large—a symbolically laden but rather pointless activity that will cost a lot of money and be logistically near-impossible to achieve.
