This is a long overdue update from Infinita!

If you’re not on the ground, this is your way to stay in the loop with what’s been happening and what’s coming next.

This edition covers: Infinite Games, the lib/acc Summit and Octavio Sánchez’s recognition, the new Dome setup, and two ways to plug into Próspera through e-residency and a tax residency program.

Here’s the update 👇

Infinite Games wrapped 🔥

Infinite Games ran through February and March, bringing 300+ people into a constant flow of tournaments, meetups, and side events.

A quick snapshot:

• 10+ main tournaments including Longevity Biomarkers, BTC Chess 960 (2 BTC prize pool), Poker ($30k+), Electric-Knife Fighting, and a Jiu-Jitsu seminar with world champion Roberto Cyborg!

• 40+ community-led activities

• 2 major conferences: Longevity Biomarkers Summit + Liberty Acceleration Summit

• Dialog Trek and Principled Business Summit plugged in

• Keynotes from Yaron Brook, Cremieux, Sid Sijbrandij, Tim Urban, and more!

🎧 Listen to the conversations: infinitacitytimes.com/podcast
📍 See it on the ground on Instagram: @infinita.city

∞

Liberty Acceleration Award to a founding architect 🏆

At the lib/acc Summit, we awarded Octavio Sánchez with the first Liberty Acceleration Award.

Octavio was a key architect behind Honduras’s ZEDE framework, the legal foundation that made Próspera possible. After an early version of the legislation was struck down, he rebuilt it and pushed it through again. That second version is what exists today.

This was also his first time visiting Próspera in person.

Recognizing him in that moment, with a room full of people building on top of that system, felt right.

∞

Infinita Dome has a new location, and you can rent it out 🎥

It’s not a standard venue. The space sits somewhere between cyberpunk and formal, with flexible seating, dynamic lighting, and a layout that adapts to talks, workshops, dinners, or recordings.

It’s fully equipped with a 2x3m LED screen, AC, snack bar + fridge, seating for 90+ people, and a high-quality AV setup for live events, streaming, or production.

As Sid Sijbrandij put it:

👉 Contact us at: dome@infinita.city to get a quote!

∞

Próspera e-residency: try building inside the system 🧩

If you’ve been around Infinita and want to go one level deeper, Próspera e-residency is the best entry point.

It gives you a digital identity to set up a business, operate inside a low-tax framework, and experiment with the ecosystem without relocating full-time.

The key thing here is optionality. You can test things. Incorporate. Try operating inside Próspera’s system without overcommitting.

You can get it here: prospera.co/r/infinita

If you use our link, you’ll also get $30 back in HIVE points inside the Infinita Wallet.

∞

Nomad Layer: a clearer tax base for global workers 🌍

For people working remotely across countries, one question keeps coming up: where do you actually pay taxes?

A lot of people either keep paying high taxes back home, ignore the problem entirely, or go through complex setups elsewhere.

Nomad Layer offers a more straightforward path: a $5,000 lump sum tax for a simpler, more stable tax base in Próspera.

It’s mainly designed for non-US citizens living a global, mobile lifestyle.

If this is relevant to you, apply here: nomadlayer.com/?r=infinita

∞

A lot moved in a short time - And we have more to come!

We wrapped a full season of activity, hosted a summit, recognized someone who helped make this ecosystem possible, upgraded key infrastructure, and kept opening new ways for people to plug in.

If you’ve been following from a distance, at some point you should just come down and see it yourself 🌴☺️

– Tails from the Infinita Team

Instead of relying solely on the medical system, Sid took a different approach. He ran every diagnostic imaginable, developed experimental treatments, combined therapies, and ultimately built his own path to survival — even when doctors ran out of options.

In this episode, we explore how Sid applied first-principles thinking to medicine, why healthcare systems are fundamentally misaligned with patient incentives, and what the future of personalized treatments could look like.

This is the second time in Próspera’s history that all venues have been fully booked out, even including the additional capacity with the hostel and Duna Tower.

The lib/acc Summit (March 25–28, 2026) came exactly at the right time. And its influence will continue and grow.

The future is bright.

A System That Was Supposed To Fail, But Didn’t

In April 2022, Reason Magazine ran the headline: “Honduras Ends Its Charter City Experiment.”

Four years later, the government that ran on shutting down ZEDEs has been voted out decisively. Meanwhile, Próspera, Ciudad Morazán, and Orchidea are still here (Ciudad Morazán and Orchidea are the two other special economic zones in Honduras).

Not only that, they’ve continued growing. Próspera now has 500+ businesses incorporated. Morazán has 300+ physical residents. The framework withstood a hostile administration that tried to undo it.

This was intentional. The Honduran “framers” knew a government like this would come at some point, and they built the legal structure accordingly with strong legal protections. What we’re seeing now is that design being tested, and holding.

The key visionary behind this framework attended the summit, visiting Próspera for the first time ever. He keeps a low profile and prefers not to be named. It was an emotional moment for me, to see him joyous at the success of Próspera, and especially at the BioHub Startups Demo Day, was genuinely meaningful.

Honduras Is Quietly Becoming Something Much Bigger

Honduras holds a very particular position in the liberty movement in Latin America. It’s still undernoticed, but if you zoom out a few decades, it may end up being one of the most important developments.

Currently, most of the attention is going to figures like Javier Milei in Argentina or Nayib Bukele in El Salvador. Those are important and significant shifts, but they are operating at what you could call the “Layer-0” level, political change that enables new directions.

What’s happening in Honduras goes one layer deeper.

The core idea is enabling “Layer-1” change: governance decentralization through special jurisdictions with legal autonomy. This is what makes charter cities possible, and what creates the base layer for what many refer to as network societies.

The “layer” framing comes from an analogy with crypto infrastructure, where different layers build on top of each other to enable more specific use cases.

Layer-1 is the city itself, a physical jurisdiction with its own legal and operational structure.

Layer-2 builds on top of that. These are districts, communities, and ecosystems focused on specific domains, whether that’s biotech, Bitcoin, nomads, or wellness.

And the actual endpoint of all of this is the application layer, the businesses.

These are companies that take advantage of the governance environment created by Layer-1. This can be biotech companies, financial services, or even traditional businesses operating with lower friction, better rule of law, and faster execution.

The People In The Room Reflected The Full Stack Of Layers

The summit was structured around this idea, and the speakers reflected it across all layers.

Layer-0: Political And Ideological Foundations

At the Layer-0 level, voices shaping political and ideological direction: Agustin Antonetti (a major Argentinian influencer close to the Milei government), Philipp Thompson (who has worked with Peruvian president Hernando de Soto, author of “The Mystery of Capital”), Patri Friedman (focused on governance experimentation and new jurisdiction models), Mark Frazier (on partnership models between governments and new systems), and Tomas Pueyo (with a talk on geopolitical shifts driven by technology).

There was also a broader alliance of similar efforts globally at the Layer-0 level. Projects from Brazil (FloripaDEZ, represented by Paloma Lecheta), Tanzania/Zanzibar (OurWorld, Florian Fournier), Indian Nations in the US (Joseph McKinney), Tipolis (Alex Voss), Liberland (Petr Krovina), Sealand (James & Liam Bates), and Hugo Mathewcowitsch (Tools for the Commons, supporting multiple Layer-1 systems).

Layer-1: Jurisdictions And Governance Infrastructure

At Layer-1, the people building and operating jurisdictions: Próspera, represented by Erick A. Brimen, Gabriel Delgado, Trey Goff, Lonis Hamaili, and Christian Betancourt, alongside Ciudad Morazán represented by Joyce Brand (author of “Morazan Rising”).

Layer-2: Ecosystems Built On Top

At Layer-2, operators building real ecosystems on top of these jurisdictions: Infinita (Niklas Anzinger, biotech), Bitcoin District (Tomek Kolodziejczuk), Noma Collective (Daniel Thompson), Roatan Tourism Bureau (Goncalo Hall), Nomad Nation (Zach Milburn), Nomad Layer (Joey Langenbrunner), and Darien Village (Ivan Syrtsov).

We anchored the Layer-1 / Layer-2 analogy in Próspera, and this is where the origin of this concept comes from, but it is already spreading to other jurisdictions. We also welcomed speakers such as Yesh Baskaran (ZuGrama, India), Payam Safa (LightDAO), Vance (My Latin Life), and Patrick Hiebert (Veritas Villages, Panama) as part of this broader expansion.

Where It Becomes Real: From Systems To Outcomes

If governance is a product, it behaves more like backend infrastructure. It matters, but it’s not what people directly interact with.

What matters is whether businesses succeed.

These are some of the real businesses already growing and operating as clear examples of what becomes possible within these systems: Niko Klein (Network Bank), Anna Vakrusheva (Unlimited Bio), Soham Sankaran (PopVax), Jonathan Anomaly (Herasight), and Brian O’Beirne (RealityNet).

That’s why the application layer is ultimately the most important part of the conversation. It’s where innovation actually happens, and where these systems prove whether they work or not.

We also had a full set of keynote speakers, including Sid Sijbrandij (founder of GitLab), Tim Urban (Wait But Why), and Cremieux (known for his work analyzing and writing on biotech, policy, and systems-level incentives).

For many, the highlight talk of the conference was Sid Sijbrandij’s “Going Founder Mode on Cancer,” where he shared his journey from diagnosis, to exhausting traditional options, to taking matters into his own hands and navigating accelerated access pathways to find treatments that were not yet commercially available.

It was a concrete example of what these systems can enable when they work. Not theory, but real-world outcomes.

The summit closed with a panel featuring Cremieux and Tim Urban on legal changes for biotech acceleration in the US, tying the broader narrative back to practical implications.

The Conversations That Don’t Happen On Stage: The Founders Retreat

Alongside the main summit, the Founders Retreat brought together a smaller group of people actively building new jurisdictions, governance infrastructure, or on top of those new layers. The group included Pronomos Capital and Seasteading, with Patri Friedman (grandson of Milton Friedman), alongside a group of aligned VCs & private investors and other practitioners. The goal was simple: share what’s actually working, what isn’t, and what to do next; packed with candid conversations about regulation, financing, and execution.

No pitches or posturing, this is where you’ll hear the real war stories and practical help on what to do next, all off the record.

So, What’s Next?

This week gave a clear read on where things actually stand.

The ZEDE framework was tested under real political pressure and held. Builders are showing up. Companies are being formed. And the people in the room were not just talking about ideas, they are actively building within these systems.

That’s what matters.

At Infinita, we’re continuing to open this up to more people. If you’re curious, come see it for yourself, spend time on the ground, talk to the people building here, and experience how this actually works in practice.

And who knows, maybe the next successful business incorporated in a frontier jurisdiction is yours!

Until we announce the next big thing Infinita will host, here are two great chances to come visit and experience it yourself:

• Free Cities Conference (September 2026) → freecitiesconference.com

• Noma Collective (July 2026) → noma-collective.com/location/Noma-Family-Jul-05-2026

If you want to be part of what’s happening, join the Infinita community and stay in the loop for what’s coming next!

✧ This was part of Infinite Games 2026, a series of tournaments and events that took place in the Próspera jurisdiction (Roatán, Honduras) during Feb-Mar, 2026.

The summit was organized by Infinita City, Próspera, and Pronomos Capital, with the support of Petar Cekaravac.

They explore Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, the ethical case for individual freedom, and why capitalism is often misunderstood in modern political discourse. The conversation also touches on libertarian governance, free private cities, and what a truly free society could look like in practice.

A deep dive into capitalism, philosophy, and the future of human freedom.

Tim Urban has spent the last decade building a massive following at Wait But Why, the most popular long-form blog on the internet.

He is best known for his work on productivity, life and career advise such as the most-watched TED Talk in history “Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator”.

Recently, Tim has focused on technology and its impact on society. He is now diving even deeper into life extension - possibly as a consequence of his work on time?

That and other questions we’ll ask him during a fireside chat on March 27th at the summit.

In the meantime, here is a primer on the writings of one of the most influential minds of our time:

On Technology and Society

The AI Revolution: Road to Superintelligence Think you understand how fast things are moving? You don’t. This post explains why we’re currently standing on a vertical line of progress that’s about to shoot off the charts.

The AI Revolution: Our Immortality or Extinction The high-stakes follow-up. Tim frames AI as a “Biological Boss” that could either solve death forever or turn us all into paperclips.

Neuralink and the Brain’s Magical Future An 80-page odyssey into why we need to merge with AI to survive. If you want to understand the “Human 2.0” hardware, start here.

What’s Our Problem? (A Self-Help Book for Societies) His latest massive work. A “new language” for understanding why society is so broken and how we can use “High-Rung” thinking to fix the institutions that hold back progress.

On Life, Time and Mortality

Putting Time in Perspective A visual ego-check. It maps out all of human history to show that we are basically still in the “Intro” credits of the human story.

Your Life in Weeks The post that turned human life into a grid of boxes. It’s the visual representation of why every single week we spend building the future matters.

The Tail End Warning: This will make you cry. It visualizes exactly how much time you have left with the people you love. It’s the ultimate “why” behind the urgency of the life extension mission.

Why Cryonics Makes Sense Tim’s “gateway drug” to life extension. He argues that dying today is just a medical emergency in a world where the hospital of the future is just a few hundred years away.

Towards Longevity Maximalism?

While Tim has been relatively quiet about the specifics, he’s dropped several hints that his next project is a deep dive into the “Biological Deadline.” Tim has publicly described his massive research folder on “Society” as having a core branch dedicated to the idea that aging is a technical failure of homeostasis - a set of biological glitches that we are finally developing the “wrenches” to fix. Sounds familiar?

It is exciting to see one of the most influential minds of our generation to gravitate towards what we’ve been working on: radical life extension!

If you’re working on ways to solve aging, apply for the BioHub Demo Day and program - maybe you’ll earn an entry in Tim’s book! If you want to see Tim’s upcoming talk, sign up to the Liberty Acceleration Summit 2026.

They discuss N-of-1 personalized therapies, biosecurity in an age of cheap DNA synthesis, and why open science could accelerate biotech innovation. The conversation also touches on cloning, embryo editing, and the long-term future of human enhancement.

Topics include:

· DNA as digital code
· Genome writing and synthetic cells
· CRISPR and programmable biology
· Personalized genetic medicine
· Biosecurity and engineered viruses
· Open biotech vs. proprietary models
· Cloning and human genome design

A conversation for builders, founders, and technologists thinking about biology as the next software layer.

They unpack how incentives distort which diseases get treated, why surrogate endpoints matter, and how off-label use, real-world data, and even “bro science” reveal gaps in the current system.

They also cover:

• Clinical evolution and iterative human testing
• Regulatory opacity and open-sourcing FDA filings
• Australia’s faster Phase 1 model
• Human challenge trials and medical freedom
• Surrogate endpoints and distorted incentives
• Real-world data and off-label discovery
• Biotech innovation shifting to China
• How better trials unlock biomedical abundance

A conversation for anyone interested in biotech, policy, and the future of drug development.

Now 16 markets are live on the Infinita Wallet App, thanks to our partner Futuur.

To participate:

1. Just sign-in to your wallet app, you’ll see right away.

2. Select the first market you want to bet on, it will take you to Futuur. You need to register on Futuur as well (sorry, this was a development trade-off we made).

3. When you’re on Futuur, you can place your bets (updated in the wallet).

Here is a little video here how this looks:

Admittedly this is a bit of a “crypto experience” with 2 sign-ins and different currencies (you can’t use $LIVES in Futuur yet, you need to deposit stablecoins there), but it’s a start - let’s have some fun! What matters is the markets.

The Live Markets

We choose markets that are relevant for the Infinita & Prospera communities - in some of those you may need a bit of “insider knowledge” or you can even effectuate the outcome (e.g. how many clinical trials we’ll do? Bring someone! How to get the insider knowledge? Go to Infinita events, pay attention, ask questions!).

We think these are actually the right incentives to set 🙂

Examples:

• Does Prospera get a favorable settlement by April 5, 2026?

• How many registered businesses will Prospera have by April 5, 2026?

• How many clinical trials will have started in Prospera by Dec 31, 2026?

• How many patients will be treated under right-to-try in Montana within 2026?

• How many fish will be killed during the Lionfish hunt?

• Will the champion of the Electric-Knife win all matches undefeated?

Please report problems, feedback or question requests to lives@infinita.city.

Mar 26-27, 2026: Signup Here

+ Private Founders Retreat @ lib/acc 2026, Mar 26-28: Signup Here

Confirmed Speakers to Date (more to be added)

Who This Is For?

• Policymakers and policy influencers, aligned with liberal governance

• Operators and founders of charter cities or SEZs, technology-driven communities or accelerators and frontier technologists like biotech, crypto, AI or hardtech

• Investors interested in “sovereignty technology” as an emerging asset class

What is It About?

The summit has a specific thesis of change: governments (layer-0) need enabling legislation for limited institutional change, allowing special economic zone or other forms of localized governance autonomy (layer-1). These local governance providers then need to attract and develop industry clusters (layer-2) that can lead to the formation of more than standard manufacturing industrial parks, but leapfrog to the “app layer” frontiers of technology (e.g. biomedical, finance, hardtech) and form residential communities, incl. experimentation in self-governance.

The summit will feature speakers from each of these verticals, for practical lessons learned, implementation, fundraising, networking and achieving scale.

The New Wave of Governance Innovation

For a long time it seemed the “end of history” is liberal democracy, and the work left to do is converting the rest of the world. However, the model has shown cracks. State overreach and authoritarian populism are the results. Latin America has largely not been able to implement the right policies to reach higher development levels.

What is missing?

True governance innovation, inspired by the best practices of history, like rights-based governance, common law or due process rules. Innovation starts with identifying problems, and applying local solutions in the real world, test and experiment until something works that can scale. This “startup approach” was how SEZs led to tremendous economic success in China (starting with Shenzhen), Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore - and is now continued in innovative ways in Latin America, in various “Zona Francas” but especially in Honduras. This and a few other trends are coming together under the “New Wave” of Governance Innovation:

• Honduras’ SEZs like Prospera, Ciudad Morazan and Orchidea survived a socialist government trying to shut them down for 4 years, now coming out stronger.

• Javier Milei in Argentina proved the results of a deep pro-liberty program for the benefit of people: lower poverty, lower inflation, lower unemployment.

• Nayib Bukele in El Salvador turned one of the most dangerous countries in the world into one of the safest, and catapulted it to the Bitcoin frontier

Many Latam governments have positive experience with SEZs and are open to do more. Many liberty-aligned groups are in power and hungry for change.

What can you expect?

This is where policy meets technology. You’ll hear about the most frontier ideas in the world: polycentric law, regulation-by-insurance, 3D property rights, blockchain-based governance and incentive mechanisms, futarchy-based governance.

Technology builders and operators enabled by this legal innovation are side-by-side with policymakers. You’ll hear about: biotech, crypto, AI, hardtech & more.

Where will you be?

Roatan in Honduras is a tropical paradise island (FAQs here), abundantly safe, good infrastructure, Caribbean amenities, gorgeous natural beauty.

You’ll stay in places like the Las Verandas high-end resort, or the burgeoning technology hub emanating from the jungle, out of a 14-story tower called Duna.

Founders Retreat

The Founders Retreat is an approval-only track for people actually building new jurisdictions, governance infrastructure, or on top of those new layers. The group will be joined by Pronomos Capital GP and Seasteading legend Patri Friedman, and a group of aligned VCs & private investors and other practitioners for orientation sessions, small-group problem-solving, and candid conversations about regulation, financing, and execution. No pitches or posturing, this is where you’ll hear the real war stories and practical help on what to do next, all off the record.

»»» Apply Here for the Founders Retreat «««

​✧ This is part of Infinite Games 2026. Infinite Games is a series of tournaments taking place in the Prospera jurisdiction (Roatan, Honduras) from Feb 1 - Mar 31, 2026 (full info) .

Your Organizers

The summit is organized by Infinita, Prospera and Pronomos Capital, with the help of Petar Cekaravac (Telegram | Email). Reach out to Petar for inquiries. You can also join the Infinita Builders Hub Telegram group here to find who else is coming.

The opening event drew a crowd of 85 people, with 30+ more coming for the longevity biomarker conference and principled business summit this weekend.

This is a special year - the the first time in 4 years, we don’t feel under an existential threat anymore. Prospera grew 80% year-on-year despite a government trying to shut it down, imagine what is possible without it now!

We invite you to join us in building the most important change of the century - a new wave of governance innovation, from Honduras to the World.

»»» Infinite Games 2026 - Signup

If you’re building in biotech, AI, or frontier tech, this is your launchpad to connect with global investors, test your ideas in the world’s most advanced regulatory zone, and go to market fast.

👉 Register Now

Last Year: The Drapers $1M Investment Competition at Infinita

You might’ve seen the headlines, last year we made history by hosting the “Meet the Drapers” Show and $1 Million Investment Competition right here in Próspera, Roatán.

Top investors flew in, startups pitched directly to Tim & Adam Draper, and Próspera proved itself as a serious playground for serious founders.

Startup Success Case: Unlimited Bio

Unlimited Bio was incubated at Infinita.

They leverage gene therapies with an existing safety track record. In Próspera, they repurpose them for longevity indications and gather data for further scaling into larger markets.

In Próspera, they went to market in under a year, at a fraction of a cost. And now they’ve already got celebrity customers.

That’s what we mean by speed.

Why Próspera?

Próspera is not just a jurisdiction. It’s a startup zone designed from scratch to let innovation move 10x faster and cheaper.

• Open a global entity online in under 24 hours

• Choose the legal framework that suits your needs

• Lock in today’s rules, taxes and all, for life

• Pay just 1% effective income tax

It’s like launching in a startup version of Singapore, built into the Honduran Caribbean.

How to Join

1. Apply here: luma.com/BioHub2026

2. Book your housing: [explore options] we’ve secured discounted options for our members

3. Coordinate arrival with our team so we can onboard you smoothly

What You Get

• Weekly mentorship from real founders and VCs

• Regulatory sandbox to test your ideas

• Pitch at the Investor Demo Day

• A chance to launch or grow your startup, right here on the Próspera Zone

👉 Apply Now

Come to live and work alongside a high-density of longevity and desci pioneers. While we scope our permanent wet-lab facilities, we offer immediate access to clinical partners for trials where you can deploy and test without limitations.

“God created man for incorruption, and made him in the image of his own eternity.”
-Book of Wisdom 2:23

In 313 AD, the Roman general Constantine conquered his rivals in a civil war, culminating in a famous victory at the Milvian Bridge. Before the battle, Constantine experienced a vision instructing him to paint the Christian symbol “chi rho”— ☧—on his men’s shields. His Edict of Milan ended official persecution, legalized Christian worship, and allowed the Christian church to own property, unleashing Christianity’s messianic energies from Anatolia to Britain.

While Constantine’s reforms made Christianity the dominant religious, cultural, and economic institution in the West, the emperor rejected forceful conversions. In a follow-up edict, he clarified that Christians must “voluntarily… undertake the conflict for immortality.” In his book Defending Constantine, Christian scholar Peter Leithart translates Constantine’s statement as “The battle for deathlessness requires willing recruits.”

Christianity’s New Conception of Death

The Emperor’s turn of phrase was significant. Christianity was suffusing the classical world with a fundamentally new conception of mortality as an aberration, a trespasser in creation, and a kind of illness afflicting the cosmos. The Western mind had come to see sickness, decay, and death itself as enemies to be fought, conquered, and destroyed.

Pre-Christian antiquity saw death as a value-neutral reality ordered by the fates. In the Iliad, Hera mocked Zeus for thinking he could save a man from his fated doom; mortality was a boundary even the gods were foolish to resist. Cicero affirmed that “if the soul did perish, there would be, even then, no evil in death.” Marcus Aurelius exhorted us to “[wait] for death with a cheerful mind, as being nothing else than a dissolution of the elements of which every living being is compounded… For [death] is according to nature, and nothing is evil which is according to nature.”

Contrast these sanguine ancients with the messianic monotheism radiating from Judea. Anyone who searches for “death” in the Bible will find himself hard-pressed to find one charitable word about mortality. From start to finish, the Bible is fanatically consistent in its view of death as an unalloyed evil, foreign to our created nature, and the great enemy of humanity and God.

Editor’s note: The following is a very comprehensive exegesis for readers interested in deep analysis of the Bible. If that’s not you, feel free to skim a bit down to “Death Gives Life Meaning” and the Pro-Aging Trance.

You can open the Psalms and pick any reference, at random, to “death” or “Sheol [the grave]” and you will find the Psalmist praying for salvation from death—not reconciliation to his own dissolution. Psalm 118, a cornerstone of all Christian liturgy, prefigures the resurrection: “I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord.”

The Psalms of David, in particular, display this theme. Psalm 16 says: “You will not abandon my soul to Sheol [the grave] / or let your holy one see corruption. You make known to me the path of life / in your presence there is fullness of joy.”

Death is evil because the grave represents disintegration and oblivion. “What profit is there in my death?... Will the dust praise you?” David asks God. As surely as death is evil, longevity is good. “He asked life of you; you gave it to him / length of days forever and ever,” says Psalm 21.

The Book of Genesis explains the introduction of death into the world through the story of Eden and the Fall of Man. Only one tree in the Garden of Eden, the “tree of knowledge of good and evil,” was forbidden to man. Yet the fruit of a different tree, “the tree of life,” was expressly given to Adam and Eve to eat. The fruit of this tree of life could sustain human life indefinitely, enabling us to “live forever.”

Tempted by Satan, human beings rebelled against God by eating from the “tree of knowledge of good and evil.” By rejecting the order of Eden, humans lost access to the tree of life. Sickness, deformity, and decay—all things that were not part of God’s design—entered into the world. Humanity was consigned to deteriorate back into the dust from which it was originally created.

The first-century BC Book of Wisdom, while regarded as apocryphal by Protestants, accurately summarizes the Bible’s overall view of death as an intruder that does not belong in creation: “God created man for incorruption and made him in the image of his own eternity, but through an adversary’s envy death entered the world.”

Taking up these themes, the biblical prophets prophesied the defeat of death, to be replaced with “everlasting life” for those whose names are written in God’s book of life. The prophets describe a physical, bodily resurrection of the dead from the dust: “You shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves.”

Throughout the Old Testament, death is consistently held up for scorn as the evil that God hates most. The word “death” is used as a stand-in for all the evil in the world. Wisdom, personified as a woman in the Book of Proverbs, says “all who hate me love death.” God pleads in vain with his people, Israel, to turn from their self-destruction and avoid death. “I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live… why will you die, O house of Israel?”

The first Christians believed that Christ came into the world so that death might be defeated. Christ is called the “New Adam,” for “as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” The apostles celebrated the coming, corporeal conquest of death, the “Last Enemy to be Destroyed.” Paul taunted death: “Death is swallowed up in victory. ‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’”

Finally, Revelation foretells that death will be chucked into the apocalyptic “lake of fire” with the devil—that death itself will die. In a restored and glorified material universe, “death shall be no more.” The “water of life” will then be given freely, and the “tree of life” from Eden will be restored.

Human beings, far from being passive observers, will actively co-participate with God in working towards this future. “The one who conquers will have this heritage [the water of life and immortality],” God announces in Revelation 21, “and I will be his God and he will be my son.” Revelation 2 clarifies that this “one who conquers” is not Christ, but the human reader of the book—who Christ is inviting to wield power “as I myself have received authority from my Father.”

The Bible contained the foundations of Constantine’s “battle for deathlessness.” Christianity rejects any attempt to cast death as a neutral fact of life or a positive good. It also stands in opposition to the modern idea that “death gives life meaning,” for the Bible is clear that death has no redeeming features and can never be a positive good to conserve. Instead, the Christian revelation reconceptualizes death as purely evil—the ultimate evil, in fact—and an unacceptable defect in the world. God, with the co-participation of his people, will destroy it entirely.

The apostles, and centuries of Christians thereafter, stood ready to face death for Christ. Yet Christian martyrdom can only be understood in the light of the promised bodily resurrection and new creation.

The Apostle Paul was as cold and sober as Bertrand Russell in recognizing that death, if it has the last word, entails nihilism. Without the resurrection of the dead, Paul says, “your faith is in vain.” The Christian martyrs did not die to welcome Marcus Aurelius’ cheerful dissolution, but to rise from their graves and live again. The Catholic thinker G.K. Chesterton aptly contrasted the martyr and the suicide by saying that the martyr dies for the sake of life, while the suicide dies for the sake of death.

“Death Gives Life Meaning” and the “Pro-Aging Trance”

Today, it’s common to hear people claim that death adds value to our lives. While Elon Musk argues that death is necessary to create ideological turnover, the usual argument is that looming decay and oblivion gives our lives their urgency, focus, and fullness. For example, philosopher Simon Critchley, citing Cicero, criticizes longevity research by saying that “The one thing that gives life meaning is the certainty of death.”

Modern novelists have been especially attracted to the idea that that life’s meaning comes from its being ephemeral and short. J.R.R. Tolkien, drawing from Wagner’s operas rather than the Bible, made death the “Gift of Ilúvatar,” the remote Prime Mover of a Neoplatonist cosmogony—a blessing which makes mankind special and offers us an escape from the material world. While the biblical Satan introduced death through the Fall of Man, Tolkien’s devil figure, Morgoth, tempts men with the prospect of release from death.

To give a more recent literary example, popular novelist Matt Haig imagines an immortal alien who is envious of human romantic love, which he says can “only be possible in someone who was going to die at some point in the future.”

Despite Christianity’s deep-seated hostility to death, non-Christian scientists and thinkers like Aubrey de Grey and Nick Bostrom are today’s leading critics of this view.

De Grey, a biogerontologist who pioneered the modern, engineering-based approach to aging as the progressive accumulation of specific categories of damage, has long described the notion that dying of aging “gives life meaning” as a “pro-aging trance.” De Grey posits that, if aging seems beyond the reach of medicine, “it makes good psychological sense to find some way to convince oneself that aging is all for the best.” As an example of this phenomenon, de Grey once cited the 2003 US President’s Council on Bioethics, which suggested that “our dedication to our activities [and] our engagement with life’s callings” depends on our looming mortality.

In his short story The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant, philosopher Nick Bostrom satirizes these pro-death cliches by describing a world in which 10,000 people per day are fed to a giant dragon. Bostrom imagines pompous ethicists using identical arguments to defend the dragon sacrifices, even warning that a “preoccupation with killing the dragon” will distract us from the full enjoyment of our lives.

The notion that “death gives life meaning” can be answered by reflecting on common human experience. In law school, my textbook on wills, trusts, and estates began by observing that most people die intestate, or without a will. Why is this?

One answer is found in Leo Tolstoy’s short story The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Tolstoy imagines a character, Pyotr, attending the funeral of his friend, Ilyich. Tolstoy writes that Pyotr views the funeral “as if death was an occurrence proper only to Ivan Ilyich, but not at all to him.”

Most readers find that Tolstoy’s story illuminates a shared human experience of death—even when it confronts us at a funeral—as a remote abstraction. While Pyotr does not think “I will live forever,” this does not mean he genuinely has the belief that “I will die.”

The truth is that most human beings, including most intellectuals, lack the belief that they will have an individual, first-person experience of dying. While they appreciate that life is abstractly finite in duration, they have never beheld what Tolstoy called the ultimate truth: “day and night going round and bringing me to death.” As the author William Saroyan put it, “everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case.”

Do the countless people who die intestate today, or who empathize with Pyotr in Ivan Ilyich, live lives without true love or meaning? Teenagers, as most of us recognize in retrospect, find their own deaths more or less unthinkable. Are teenagers’ lives devoid of purpose—or of love?

“Death Gives Life Meaning” is a Secular Argument

The cliché that “death gives life meaning” seems to be no more than one or two centuries old. It originated, as far as I can tell, in the same place that Tolkien likely found it: in German romantic pessimism. Having read thinkers from every era of Christian and Western history, I have never found anything quite like it before Schopenhauer and after Constantine.

Some atheist futurists, recognizing the absurdity of the “pro-aging trance,” assume that the trance originated from Christianity. Nothing could be further from the truth. Of the 30,000 verses in the Bible, not one of them says anything approaching “death gives life meaning.” The prophets certainly never called death—as Tolkien suggests it was—“the Gift of the Lord,” nor waxed fondly about dissolution and oblivion like the Epicureans and Stoics. On the contrary, it was the Christian worldview that introduced the wholly opposite conception of death into the world.

An unsympathetic Christian reader, seeking to salvage a pro-death perspective, might claim that, although the biblical authors never said anything like “death gives life meaning,” they would have agreed with the sentiment if they lived today. A pro-death Christian might urge that the biblical authors could not foresee modern biotechnology and therefore were not motivated to warn us that longevity is bad.

But the state of science in antiquity tells us nothing about Christianity’s view of death. Homer, Cicero, and Aurelius could no more foresee cellular biology than the Psalmist could. Yet the Psalmist, not these Western classical authors, offered a strikingly unblinking, sober recognition of death as an absolute evil.

Nor did any significant Christian thinker in antiquity, the Middle Ages, or modernity—until about the past century—criticize any medical advancement on the grounds that it reduced sickness and suffering or forestalled death. When, for example, microbiologist and outspoken Christian Louis Pasteur successfully developed a vaccination for rabies in 1885, no theologian denounced Pasteur on the grounds that his vaccine would prolong millions of lives. On the contrary, Christian theologians from Gregory of Nyssa to Pope Pius XII have heralded technology and medicine as means of extending mankind’s dominion over the material universe.

The historical significance of Christianity’s theological innovation is underrated and difficult to overstate. Long before biotechnology, or even Baconian science, human beings grappled with the obvious tragedy of death. Humans clearly did not need science to engage in philosophical copium and tell themselves that death is, after all, not so bad. From East to West, this is largely what humanity’s poets and sages did.

Christianity alone introduced a singularly hostile view of death as an unacceptable flaw in reality, not an essential part of who we are, and foretold its conquest and obliteration in the Lake of Fire. This victory against death will be won, not in Elysium or the Platonic Realm of the Forms, but in the material universe: in our very bones, our flesh, and in the fabric of the cosmos.

Christianity’s Embrace of the Material Body

A second core innovation of Christianity is its embrace of the human body and the material world. The Christian afterlife is fundamentally immanent and embodied. Christians will not merely go to an abstract “heaven”: instead, all dead Christians will be physically resurrected in glorified bodies—cured of all deformity, sickness, and decay—at the Last Judgment.

In 2 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul explains that, while we long to be set free from the decay of our bodies, it is “not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” To be “further clothed” is to receive one’s material “resurrection body.”

Importantly, many people will receive their resurrection bodies without ever having died. Even if no Christians receive their resurrection bodies before the Last Judgment, after all, many Christians will be alive when the Last Judgment occurs. God does not need to kill these living people in order to give them their resurrection bodies. Paul famously observes this in 1 Corinthians 15:51, saying: “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.” This means that any Christian who wants to argue that death has some positive value cannot even claim that death is a necessary gateway to our resurrection bodies.

The cosmos will itself also undergo a kind of resurrection into a majestic, but still material, form, free of death and entropy. While pre-Christian Judea had a robust doctrine of the Fall of Man, Christians introduced the further idea that the very fabric of the universe had itself been corrupted by the Fall and was decaying. In Romans 8:21, Paul stated that “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption [or “decay”] and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”

Christianity’s twin claims that our reality had come into being at a finite point in the past and was now “decaying” both contradicted the consensus of Aristotelian physics—that the cosmos is past-eternal, unchanging, and does not decay. In this way, the Christian revelation correctly anticipated something like the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Heat Death. At the same time, the Bible raised the prospect that creation’s decay could be resolved in the future. Decay does not point to an escape from the cosmos, but to its liberation and transformation: to the creation of “A New Heaven and a New Earth.”

Revelation 21 introduces a vivid cosmography of the future with a divine promise: “Behold, I am making all things new.” It then describes the “New Jerusalem”: a strange, cubical, crystalline structure, comparable in size to the moon, hovering in the heavens. This mysterious imagery has led critical scholar Bart Ehrman to describe Revelation as a form of “science fiction.” The overarching message, however, is clear: God’s new creation will not be an immaterial spiritual world, but a renewed version of this universe analogous to our own resurrected bodies.

In the early centuries of the church, Christianity clarified its view of matter and the body in response to the attacks of the Gnostics: a splinter group who, working to accommodate Christianity to Platonist philosophy, cast matter as evil and denied the bodily resurrection. Irenaeus of Lyon, a second-century bishop thought to be a spiritual grandson of the disciple John, responded to the Gnostics with his work Adversus Haereses—a virtual treatise on the triumph of bodily glory, health, and longevity over aging and death. Irenaeus is today regarded by all Christian denominations as one of the most important fathers of the early church.

In Haereses, Irenaeus worked to systematically refute Gnostic arguments that it was impossible for a biological body to be immortal. According to Irenaeus, Christians must affirm bodily immortality—not an afterlife as a mere immaterial soul—because Jesus Christ has given both “His soul for our souls, and His flesh for our flesh.”

Irenaeus also thinks the Bible teaches that our biological bodies can be sustained indefinitely. He cites stories in the Pentateuch of patriarchs living “beyond seven hundred, eight hundred, and nine hundred years of age.” Regardless, he reasons that “if the flesh were not in a position to be saved, the Word of God [Christ] would in no wise have become flesh.” Irenaeus then concludes explicitly that, by the time of the New Heaven and the New Earth, “man has been renewed, and flourishes in an incorruptible state, so as to preclude the possibility of becoming old.”

No ancient Western system besides Christianity ever suggested that human beings might one day cease to grow old—nor even contemplated human biological immortality as desirable.

In the classical world’s folk mythology, the dead might hope to reside in Elysium or the Isles of the Blessed: an ethereal plane of ease and gentle breezes where the dead strum indolently on harps. In Epicurean philosophy, of course, death represented disintegration and annihilation. Death was, in any case, embraced by classical thinkers precisely as a reprieve from the physical world.

This contrast points to an irony in contemporary atheistic futurism. Today, some techno-accelerationists say that the West has been held back by Christianity’s focus on an otherworldly “heaven” rather than this universe—and that the West must therefore return to pagan morality to get things done. Yet it was only the God of Jacob who gave humanity the messianic vision of a “New Heaven and a New Earth.” Pagans, not Christians, had a pie-in-the-sky Elysium: the Christian God said “I will make all things new.”

The Christian Dominion Mandate and Techno-Optimism

Christianity’s third innovation is its active eschatology, emphasizing human agency in the ultimate conquest of sickness, suffering, and evil. While ancient pagan thinkers speculated about the final fate of the world, they tended to think that large, impersonal laws would determine the universe’s future.

To Christians, however, the coming destruction of death—and the inauguration of the New Heaven and the New Earth—would involve human co-participation with God’s will. In other words, early Christianity prefigured later futurist ideas that intelligence, rather than blind forces, would determine the fate of the universe.

Passages like Psalm 8 articulate a foundational principle of Christian eschatology: mankind’s dominion mandate. The God who has made all of creation, including the stars, has given man dominion over all of creation. “What is man that you are mindful of him?... You have given him dominion over the works of your hands.”

In two of the most iconic parables in the Gospels, the Mustard Seed and the Leaven, Christ prophesies that God’s Kingdom on Earth will grow, fill, and reshape the world. Christians have always understood this Kingdom to be the church, which Paul called the Body of Christ.

Christ’s parables are also allusions to Daniel’s apocalyptic vision in Daniel 2, itself describing God’s people co-participating in the advent of God’s dominion on Earth. This theme eventually reaches its climax in Christ’s speech to John in Revelation, in which “the one who conquers” is invited to share in the water of life and immortality.

In the fourth and fifth books of Adversus Haereses, Irenaeus elaborated on mankind’s dominion mandate and the Christian doctrine of theosis, or divinization: becoming like God. Gnostics argued that the Creator of this material universe must be an evil entity because the world is full of sickness and suffering. In response, Irenaeus argued that Gnostics are only seeing the beginning of the story. By creating humanity, God has germinated the future divinization of this world. Human beings should not “cast blame upon Him, because we have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods.”

Irenaeus is clear that this process of theosis will involve our actively participating with God in conquering the Fall and its effects. Our conquest of decay will itself draw us closer to God, for “the beholding of God is productive of immortality, but immortality renders one near unto God.” Although he could not have anticipated modern biotechnology, Irenaeus plainly has a general notion that we will subdue and utilize the matter of the world as part of our “ripening for immortality.”

The late ancient church father Gregory of Nyssa elaborated on the same essential idea, explaining that God made mankind physically weaker than other animals in order to give us, paradoxically, “a means for our obtaining dominion.”

To make up for our natural deficiencies, Gregory says that humans have been inspired to invent agriculture, domesticate animals, and to develop metallurgy. Our deficiencies have made our own dominion necessary. God permits us to suffer from these deficiencies, not so that we might piously make peace with them, but to refine us, to drive us to transcend them, and to draw us upwards towards Himself.

In John 9, Jesus was asked why a certain man had been born blind from birth. “Who sinned, this man or his parents?,” Jesus’ disciples ask. Jesus does not say—as a modern pietist might—that God wishes the blind man to learn inner peace through suffering. Instead, he responds that the man was born blind so that “the works of God might be displayed in him.” Jesus then heals the man’s blindness by anointing his eyes. “We must work the works of him who sent me,” he tells his disciples.

In other words, blindness—as Irenaeus and Gregory suggested—only exists as a limitation to be overcome. Jesus’ teaching, as well as the example of his healing ministry, inspired Christians to invent the first hospitals and drive the advancement of medicine and the sciences throughout history.

Modern Christian apologists often argue that Christianity, with its faith in a universe of fixed and elegant laws, laid the intellectual foundations that made science possible. Yet Christians did not drive the progress of science simply because their descriptive metaphysics allowed it: they were also driven to discover, innovate, and build because they were ablaze with a holy imperative to take dominion over the universe and subordinate it towards the flourishing of mankind. This was palpably true of, for example, Hildegard von Bingen, Roger Bacon, Johannes Kepler, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and Pasteur.

How Christianity Created Tech Futurism

What is now sometimes called “futurism”—an active, technological, and optimistic vision of humanity’s role in the universe—was first espoused by Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic theologians in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Today, some staunchly atheistic futurists attempt to omit Christian thinkers from the lineage of futurism. These futurists prefer to trace their ideas to a 1929 book by the Marxist futurist JD Bernal or, before him, to a 1924 essay by JBS Haldane. Yet the Eastern Orthodox theologian Nikolai Fyodorov explicitly advocated both space colonization and regenerative biotechnology from 1864 until his death in 1903.

Fyodorov is a theologian of monumental but understated influence. Known as “Moskovskii Sokrat,” he attracted a circle of influential disciples in Moscow, including Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, and taught that God was calling upon humanity to extend itself throughout the universe, command matter, conquer all bodily decay, and regulate the forces of the cosmos. Tsiolkovsky would one day be known as the father of rocketry.

The Catholic priest and paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin expressed similar ideas in his seminal work Writings in a Time of War, written while serving as a wartime stretcher-bearer from 1916 to 1919. The book contains the greatest essay of Teilhard’s career, Cosmic Life, in which Teilhard proposes that we may “envisage a new era in which suffering is effectively alleviated, well-being is assured, and—who knows?—our organs are perhaps rejuvenated.” Teilhard warns that “It is dangerous to challenge science and set a limit to its victories, for the hidden energies it summons from the depths are unfathomable.”

Teilhard has been positively quoted by multiple popes, including Paul VI and Benedict XVI, and was once described by Pope John Paul II as “a man seized by Christ in the depths of his being.” His ideas were also endorsed by Pope Pius XII in a magnificent 1939 speech entitled “Man Ascends to God by Climbing the Ladder of the Universe,” expressing many of the concepts discussed in this essay.

Secular futurist philosopher Eric Steinhart notes that even secular futurists “work within the conceptual architecture of Teilhard’s [futurism] without being aware of its [Christian] origins.” It is not a coincidence that futurism was first espoused by Christians rather than Marxists, Buddhists, or any other group. Both materially and spiritually, messianic monotheism and the Christian resurrection planted, at the axis of the ancient world, the germ of a war against death.

What Does This Mean For Us Today?

Constantine’s war is being fought now. Today, Christians are undernoticed among the innovators, builders, and leaders who are fighting to combat suffering and promote human flourishing through ethical biotechnology. For example, Christians are playing a leading role in the legal and policy battle to unleash regenerative biotechnology in the United States.

As of this writing, three states in the United States have innovative legal regimes allowing patients to effectively access experimental biotechnology parallel to the normal Food and Drug Administration pathway: Montana, New Hampshire, and Florida. In both New Hampshire and Florida, the push to pass the law was led primarily by conservative Christians, with secular organizations and businesses playing a supporting role.

The modern regulatory state has created major obstacles to technological progress. The examples of New Hampshire and Florida show that Christians can use our energy and organizational skills to dismantle these obstacles. By doing so, Christians are combatting evil, worshipping God, and carrying out our dominion mandate.

In New Hampshire, where my own work is focused, Christians hope to set an example that can resonate throughout the country. Our new law is just the beginning. New Hampshire’s proximity to Boston’s biotech hub, together with our unique political culture, put our state in a prime position to become a leading center of experimental biotechnology. By leveraging these advantages, we can unleash a flourishing industry in the state and help to combat the evils of sickness and decay in New England and across the country.

I began my legislative testimony in favor of New Hampshire’s law by discussing Jesus’ healing ministry and his call for us to imitate his example. In the light of Christ’s life, no knowledgeable legislator—Christian or secular—can be surprised that a Christian would support biotechnological progress.

Faithful Christians must continue to heed the call of Christian theology to advance science and technology—both by removing obstacles to their advancement and by taking leading roles in these fields. Non-Christians who work in technology and science should also reconsider Christianity’s role in promoting the sciences and the role that Christians can play today in unleashing them. Constantine’s “battle for deathlessness” continues.

Contact me if you are a Christian church leader or advocate who wants to discuss how the church can promote ethical pro-biotech legal reforms—or a biotechnologist who wants to discuss the role of Christianity in advancing human flourishing. You should also contact me if you’re a leader in science and technology interested in making use of New Hampshire’s enabling environment for regenerative medicine and biotechnology.

“It was necessary that man should in the first instance be created; and having been created, should receive growth; and having received growth, should be strengthened; and having been strengthened, should abound; and having abounded, should recover [from the disease of sin]; and having recovered, should be glorified; and being glorified, should see his Lord. For God is He who is yet to be seen, and the beholding of God is productive of immortality, but immortality renders one near unto God… We cast blame upon Him, because we have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods.”

— Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, IV.38

Ian Huyett is a litigator and lobbyist who writes on law and technology. Follow him on X @IanHuyett.

Read the Essay: The Christian War on Death
How Christianity reframed mortality and unleashed biotech acceleration.

Read: The Christian War on Death

In this episode, Ian and Niklas explore the alignment between serious Christian theology and biotech acceleration. Ian makes the case for combating sickness, aging, and death, challenges ideas like “death gives life meaning” or “playing God,” and explains why Christians have long driven medical innovation. The discussion then shifts to law and strategy, including the New Hampshire Right to Try bill, the role of civil liability, and how states like New Hampshire, Montana, and Florida are opening real paths for experimental treatments.

More about Ian’s work:

• Corner Stone Action

• Ian’s X

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• Explore the Archive: The Infinita City Times

• Visit Infinita City

• Join the Builders’ Hub on Telegram

• Follow Infinita City on X

Niklas sits down with Arjun to explore how COVID shifted his worldview, how The Beginning of Infinity pushed him toward a deeper model of progress, and why privacy became central to his thinking about innovation.

They unpack Zcash as an encrypted monetary system, how zero-knowledge proofs work in practice, how privacy shapes creativity and risk-taking, and what a modern Renaissance of talent could look like in a world built on cryptography.

They also cover:

• The path from Bitcoin to Zcash and the tech behind shielded transactions
  

• Privacy as a foundation for authenticity, safety, and experimentation
  

• AI-driven surveillance and its implications for money
  

• Funding talented people and the lessons from the Medici era
  

• The philosophical lineage: Deutsch, Popper, Schmer, optimism, error correction
  

• How Zcash fits into the broader landscape of crypto protocols
  

A conversation for anyone thinking about cryptography, progress, startup societies, and how the next wave of talent emerges and gets supported.

📹 Watch on YT

More about Arjun’s work:

• Arjun’s X

• Substack/Podcast

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• Explore the Archive: The Infinita City Times

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Sign up now and we’ll get you through everything.

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Hey Infinitans, welcome back! With the Infinite Games approaching, housing options are still wide open. Secure your spot now to avoid any last-minute hassle.

If you’ve never visited Roatán, get ready: the place gets under your skin fast. And your base (where you sleep, cook, shower, decompress) changes everything.

Let’s explore the diverse accommodations available!

Let’s take a comprehensive walk-through of the different stay options available

1. Las Verandas, Roatán (Premium Experience):

If you want a premium resort within Infinita’s orbit, you can book at Las Verandas Hotel & Villas:

• Luxury resort in Pristine Bay, with ocean views, pools, and private beach access.
  

• About 10 minutes by car from Duna Tower.
  

• Ideal for founders, speakers, and teams who want quiet, comfort, and a “back to the resort” feel after events.
  

• Starting at $149 per night.
  
  

Note: This is the “treat yourself” option - best if you’re staying longer, sharing a villa with friends, or want resort-level services while still being close to all Infinite Games action.

• A high-end experience. Availability is highly limited and booking should be a top priority.

2. Pristine Bay Villas (Groups & Long Stays):

If you’re coming with a group or planning a longer stay, you can book one of the Pristine Bay Villas:

• 2–5 bedroom villas with private pools, full kitchens, and large common areas.
  

• About 10 minutes by car from Duna Tower.
  

• Ideal for teams, families, or friends who want more space and a “live here” setup.
  

• Starting around $240/night.
  

Note: This is the best option if you want privacy, room to spread out, and a home-style stay inside Pristine Bay.

Spacious villas with ocean views and private pools inside Pristine Bay.

3. Duna Tower (Private, 1–2 Bedrooms):

If you want your own space right in the center of the community, you can book an apartment at Duna Tower:

• Private studios and 1–2 bedroom units with kitchen, balcony, and fast WiFi.
  

• Steps from the main shared spaces where most community activities happen: coworking, meetups, rooftop pool.
  

• Ideal for solo travelers, founders, and couples who want privacy but still want to be in the middle of the action.
  

• Starting at $100 per night.
  

Note: This is the most convenient option if you want to stay in the Beta District, walk everywhere, and be part of the daily flow of events.

The center of the Beta District, where most of the action happens.

4. Beta Hostel (Shared Rooms):

If you want the most budget-friendly option inside Infinita, you can stay at Beta Hostel:

• Shared, gender-separated rooms designed for comfort and privacy.
  

• 3-minute walk from Duna’s shared spaces, coworking, and community events.
  

• Includes towels, power outlets, fast WiFi, and easy access to everything happening on-site.
  

• $24 per night.

Note: This is the simplest and most affordable way to stay inside Infinita. Perfect for solo travelers, students, or anyone staying on a budget while still being part of the full Infinite Games experience.

Budget-friendly shared rooms inside the community.

You can stay anywhere in Roatán, the island is full of hotels and rentals.
But the real magic of Infinite Games happens inside the Infinita bubble. The walks to the Dome. Running into people you met the night before. Having dinner together. Sunset conversations that lead to new projects.

That doesn’t happen when you’re 20 minutes away.
It happens here.

And remember why you’re coming: The Infinite Games.

Two months of project acceleration, competitions, and real frontier play, from electric knife fighting to crypto poker, from reef expeditions to the Longevity Biomarkers Competition. A place built for people like you, who want to push the edges of what’s possible and do it surrounded by likeminded individuals.

If you’re ready:

Get your wallet:

Wallet

Book your stay:

Book now

Get your Node Pass (access to the community):

Node Pass

Request to join the Games:

Play forever

See you in February, Infinitans.

Bryan Caplan is a professor of economics at George Mason University and the author of several books, including Open Borders - The Science and Ethics of Immigration, The Case Against Education and the Myth of the Rational Voter.

Niklas sits down with Bryan to talk about his new books and why markets often work better than we give them credit for. They dig into how governments block progress in the name of safety, why antitrust usually backfires, and how “free” public services wipe out space for affordable alternatives. Bryan makes a compelling new case for free markets - even free market advocates have often been overly critical of business, and he comes up with a novel concept: there are things that sound good and bad, and things that are good and bad. Politics is promoting things that sound good but are bad - markets are promoting things that sound bad but are good.

They also cover:

• the Microsoft antitrust case and its real cost

• why poor countries suffer from too little big business

• entrepreneurship as real-world experimentation
  
  

A conversation for anyone building around regulation or trying to understand how progress really happens.

🎥 Watch on YT

More about GUEST’S work:

• Bryan’s Wiki

• Bryan’s X

Explore Infinita City:

• Explore the Archive: The Infinita City Times

• Visit Infinita City

• Join the Builders’ Hub on Telegram

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Together, they unpack:

• The pivotal moments: 1962’s Kefeuver-Harris amendments and 1992’s PDUFA and how they changed the game

• Why the system now favors chronic medication over simpler or even one-shot cures

• How off-label use and underground networks (like HIV buyers clubs) filled the gaps left by regulation

• What the rollback of “Chevron Deference” means and why this may be the biggest opening in decades

• How “statistical significance” became a misleading gold standard

• Why founders still building in the U.S. need to understand the incentives behind drug lag, suppression of short-term treatments, and the quiet cartelization of Big Pharma

• What it means to build around, beyond or outside the FDA: from Montana to Próspera

🎥 Watch on YT

More about Mary’s work:

• Mary’s X

• Wiki

• Amazon Books

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• Explore the Archive: The Infinita City Times

• Visit Infinita City

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These Games are built for fun, for competition, for family, friends, and community.

∞ Infinite Games 2026

We’re announcing the first batch today.

Check the details and choose your game!

✦ Longevity Biomarkers Competition

by RejuveAi

📅 Feb 1–28

Compete to improve your longevity biomarkers. Athletes submit blood work, wearable data, and other biomarkers. The winners are those with the most rejuvenated biological age.

👉 Register

​✦ Crypto Golf Tournament

by @LinksDAO

📅 Feb 14–15

18 holes. Precision, strategy, and real stakes. Compete on a challenging course and connect with crypto leaders off-screen and on the fairway.

👉 Register

​✦ Electric-Knife Fights Championship

by Rich Lee

📅 Mar 20–21

Born in the biohacking underground, electric knife fighting evolved into a sport of skill, nerve, and control. Fast reflexes, precise strikes, and electric adrenaline.

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​✦ Freediving Tournament

by ​the Roatan Freediving S&T Center

📅 Mar 7–14

Where breath becomes the only boundary. A descent into stillness, precision, and the limits of human control. Dive into the Caribbean and go as deep as you can.

👉 Register

​✦ Prediction Markets Arena

by @PolyquestSOL

📅 Feb 1–Mar 31

Trade on outcomes across the games (IG26), who wins Knife Fights, how far Divers go, and more. Accuracy earns rewards. Insight earns reputation. Foresight is the ultimate play.

👉 Register

​✦ Mini-Builders STEM Challenge

by Pristine Academy

📅 Mar 17–18

A hands-on competition where kids explore robotics, design, and more - to solve challenges on Science, Tech, Engineering, and Math. Real-world learning. Play to innovate.

👉 Register

​✦ Reef Expedition Underwater Photo Contest

📅 Mar 14–15

Capture the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth. Two days to explore, photograph, and reveal the underwater glow beneath the surface.

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​✦ Startups Accelerator Program & Demo Day

by BioHub @Prosperahn

🚀 Join the accelerator program and go from idea to market in months, not decades. Build where biotech moves fast, crypto builds freely, and get pitch-ready for Investor Demo Day.

Here’s how to apply 👇

· · ·

✧ ACCELERATOR PROGRAM

🧬 For founders and scientists building biotech, healthcare delivery, crypto/web3, fintech, human enhancement or neurotech.

⚡️ Access fast regulatory pathways, crypto-native financial rails, and lab space for hardware and clinical development.

🔬 Raise in months, move toward clinical in under a year, and connect with investors who’ve backed >$25M in our community.

👉 Apply to accelerate

· · ·

✧ INVESTOR DEMO DAY

• Pitch your prototype and traction to VCs, angels, and partners

• Investor roundtables, partnership sessions, and on-site lab demos

• Access opportunities for seed grants, fast-track incorporation, and clinical support

👉 Apply to pitch

🧩 How To Join​

1. ​Pre-register here to access the Infinite Games ecosystem and secure your spot for participation.

2. ​Sign up or log in at infinita.city/wallet and purchase $LIVES tokens.

3. ​Get your NODE Pass (Infinita City’s membership ID).

4. ​Once your membership is active, you can register for any of the games you want — as many as you’d like.

​🎫 Note: Each game has its own participation fee, paid separately in $LIVES.

Infinite Games 2026 is more than a festival of sports and tournaments. It’s an invitation to play inside a living experiment: a place where biotech, finance, and science accelerate real progress for humanity.

Here, competition sparks connection. Performance fuels innovation. And play becomes the engine for something bigger than trophies or titles.

If you’re curious to meet the people building new systems, if you’re ready for a challenge, or if you just want to share a great time with friends in a tropical paradise… these are your Games.

Infinite Games celebrate Network Societies, join us to play toward eternity with biotech, computation, and science

Play long-term.games forever

There’s momentum, a growth rate of 100% YOY is great. Balaji remains unmatched at generating mimetic energy—pulling in governments, tier-1 VCs, and billionaires.

The question now isn’t whether the idea resonates; it’s how to prove it.

What Worked Great

The movement is very collaborative. No toxic crypto tribalism despite competing for a small pie. Solana and Ethereum builders worked side by side. Operators shared lessons without NDAs, introduced each other to investors, and actually created value together the past year.

That deserves applause. It’s rare when a new category emerges and frankly, not all corners of the movement manage this level of good faith. The curation here was right.

Second, the Network School basecamp works. It’s a tangible place in Forest City, Malaysia, just across the Singapore border. It shows an example of how these ideas look like in real life. Balaji built a hub for tech-nomads aligned with his vision, great infrastructure, and an intentional culture set as “Burn. Earn. Learn.” And it’s clearly visible how long people have been to Network School: people get jacked there! The gym is the cultural node of “Burn”.

As I wrote in my previous piece on startup society challenges, it’s one of the best examples of infrastructure leverage, repurposing stranded assets and creating demand. But has no regulatory autonomy yet. I hope they can get there, it’s hard.

This is to me the most important thing: the movement still isn’t aimed squarely at unbundling sovereignty, at building real freedom through legal autonomy and the power to write our own rules. “Society-as-a-service” is great, but “governance-as-a-service“ is the upgrade. Law and courts on top of living together.

Unbundling Sovereignty

Noah Smith and Tomas Pueyo’s talks captured some nuance where the network state movement can sharpen its focus. Their five minute speaking slots couldn’t do their insight justice, the real depth came later, in breakfast and coffee break conversations.

Noah argued that chasing full sovereignty won’t work: network states can’t provide public goods the way host countries can. I’m more libertarian than Noah—markets can handle roads, public services and infrastructure better than governments—but he’s right that positive-sum, symbiotic relationships with host countries are a precondition for success. It makes perfect sense to piggyback on their national defense and diplomacy. Anything else is a non-starter with governments. So, should network states ever seek diplomatic recognition? My answer is no. It doesn’t seem the ideal north star to me, and I suggest to reframe it. Noah suggested a modern Hanseatic League, not new countries, but new governance providers.* I agree. We shouldn’t be recreating Westphalian age sovereigns. We should be creating post-nation state entities. Someone called it “synthetic jurisdictions”:

(*The New Hanseatic League framing is not new in the movement by the way. Tom W. Bell, Mark Frazier and Bob Haywood, the long-term OGs, are constantly talking about it.)

Tomas Pueyo phrased the right direction perfectly: “unbundling sovereignty.” We talked about treating sovereignty like an engineering problem (watch out for new articles on his Substack).

What are the components of sovereignty? It’s not just recognition, it’s capability.

The common misconception is that “the government can always shut you down.” Not true. Take crypto. The SEC and several US government officials wanted to regulate it out of existence. Sovereignty is often conflated with totalitarianism, mostly because of the (false) Hobbesian idea of government authority. There are effective limits on totalitarianism, like legal protections and counter-capabilities that protect partial sovereignty. Crypto is on the path to separate state and money—the formal authority of nation states was not enough to prevent that.

Crypto is a sovereignty technology. With the capability of doing what governments otherwise do (issue money), and give it into the hands of millions, state capability gets replaced de facto.

The analogy is: crypto separates state and money; the network separates state and governance.

Just as Bitcoin doesn’t need to become the Federal Reserve to separate state and money, we don’t need diplomatic recognition to separate state and governance. What matters is capability. The Federal Reserve is centralized recognition, and Bitcoin is decentralized recognition. The equivalent to the Fed is the United Nations (UN), and we don’t need their recognition either.

The unbundling framework works because it’s actionable. Tomas listed every governance service states provide, then ranked them by difficulty to unbundle. For example, Clear is an interesting example for cross-border movement. It’s conceivable that countries will grant visa issuance authority to companies (we discussed this with the government in Montenegro).

Próspera already provides opt-in governance to residents and companies, privately run for-profit, and tech-scalable. Infinita, under Próspera and Montana medical frameworks, extends that to biotech: issuing approvals similar to IRBs, and parts of the FDA.

That is an illustration of an active process to unbundle rule-making in healthcare.

Generally, authority can be formally delegated or subdivided: for example through special economic zones. When you hold the zone title, you hold limited jurisdictional authority, as a subdivision of sovereignty. Prospera has a broad subdivision of sovereignty in Honduras. Montana offers limited subdivision in healthcare with its SB 535 right-to-try.

Honduras is a sovereign state. Is it an exercise of sovereignty if one government makes a deal with investors, and the next government reneges on it? It’s rogue, and it’s violating the rights of people that made contracts, investors and its own population that suffers from the resulting downgrade in investment climate and job loss. If you think a sovereign should be able to do that, you’re rejecting the idea of limited government outright and justifying lawlessness.

Now is there something you can do if a state expropriates your investment and violates the laws itself that it is bound by? Turns out you can. There are courts for that like ICSID by the World Bank. This is where Prospera is suing the Honduran government for $10bn.

This seems to me are the frontiers of sovereignty, and we should discuss it more.

It seems to me we’re all just in the beginning stages of understanding sovereignty. Just like before crypto, knowledge of what “money” is was fractal and academic. We learned through adoption of real solutions deployed to millions. That experience provided fidelity and broadly shared knowledge. Now we know precisely what money is and what it can do.

Enter Solana

At this moment it seems to me Solana has outpaced Ethereum in real-network state progress.

Ethereum blazed the trail. Vitalik’s Zuzalu was a breakthrough that introduced the popup city model as an initial market test for startup societies. But since then, many Ethereum-aligned projects have stalled or lowered their ambition (if you agree with my north star). Forma (a direct Solana spinout) announced a government partnership with Kazakhstan & are talking to more. Ipê City (somewhat Solana aligned) worked on the Florianopolis Digital Economic Zone in Brazil. Infinita launched $LIVES on Solana. Venture Launch is organizing Solana Próspera in October—an initiative with Nomadz, a community of Solana builders.

Credit where due: Ethereum-aligned projects like Zuitzerland, Frontier Tower and Edge City have all shown strong participation numbers - Edge City hit 11k+. But numbers alone aren’t what matters, in my opinion. We’ve already known that tech events attract crowds. Having people live together for longer periods of time is a good extension of that, but towards what end? If there is no articulated goal or plan towards partial sovereignty, it’s a longer event (and at that far away from a 4-year college experience - and we don’t call college a society).

That’s why my personal favorite Ethereum-aligned project is Crecimiento in Argentina, unfortunately they were not presenting this time. They have a clearly articulated governance goal: make Argentina a crypto nation. The events and popup are a means towards that end.

It seemed to me the Solana projects have more clearly understood that directionality, actively negotiating to become layer-1s, and engaging as layer-2s in layer-1s like Próspera.

A Better Taxonomy

Back in 2023, even Discord servers were calling themselves network states.

Co-living projects in NYC and SF with party and upscale vibes were being presented next to Próspera, a hardcore development project in a poor country. That’s confusing to newcomers to the movement, and we need to provide more clarity on how those are connected.

I propose the following principle: a degree of legal autonomy means “on-chain”, and no legal autonomy means “off-chain”. Legal autonomy is where governance evolves. Not all governance, but it’s where governance settlement finality takes place (e.g. where the courts decide).

To make that distinction clearer, and show where the different projects in the movement fall, and make it more accessible to newcomers, I propose the following taxonomy:

Layer-0s: Enabling governments experimenting with regulatory innovation—Honduras, Dubai, Palau, US states (Montana, New Hampshire), Bahamas with their new longevity law.

Layer-1s: Jurisdictions with regulatory root access - Próspera, Ciudad Morazán, Alpha Cities—these are subdivisions of L-0s with real legal authority for governance innovation.

Layer-2s: Builders leveraging those foundations, focused on community, industry, technology. Infinita, Orangeville, Solana Venture Launch fall here. L2s are vertical; L1s are horizontal.

Apps: Companies deploying on any of those layers, Minicircle, Unlimited Bio, The Network Bank, companies incorporated in digital economic zones based in L1s.

Projects can straddle layers. Just like Solana is both a L1 and L2 blockchain, and Ethereum scales through multiple L2s, we’ll see hybrids, L1 doing L2 work and vice versa.

Edge City, Ipê City, Crecimiento, Zuitzerland, Frontier Tower may eventually evolve into L1s or L2s. In most cases L2s make more sense, since L1s take years to build. Starting as a L2 may be a pathway to become an L1. Either way, the point is directionality—the north star is separating governance from state i.e. building L1s and L2s on top of existing L0s.

Community activation in SF or NY, cultural layers and co-living communities have their place in the movement if they’re pro-tech, pro-crypto. Not all of them understand, or even aim for, the core principle of sovereignty unbundling. Some will evolve toward it, others won’t. It’s good to bring more in. Some of them will convert to becoming L2s, or eventually L1s even.

And look this is just my take, the movement is a broad tent. Not everyone has to be ethos driven or agree with my proposed ethos, just as not every crypto project views the separation of state and money and their end goal or motivation. Many, even some of the best projects, just want to build a good product for people and see the “ethos” part as too pie in the sky. Some communities simply haven’t found a Layer-1 that shares their values and ethos.

What Matters is the App Layer

Whatever your take is on sovereignty, here is what’s really missing in the conversation: the app layer, where technology meets governance. Biotech. Hardtech (like robots, nuclear power or drones). Crypto. That’s the real frontier—massive technological acceleration unlocked by better governance, absent monopolistic regulators (see my podcast). Imagine if Elon could build where regulation wasn’t a maze, but a truly enabling force. How many more “Elons” could exist under better governance, and how much more could they do? I bet it’s at least 10x more.

I’m not sure Coinbase or Binance fully understand why they’re in this movement. Brian Armstrong gets it, but most people even one level below don’t. I tried bringing them in, and most people there are confused. Solana seems to understand a bit deeper but even at Breakpoint you’d struggle to find many network state-aligned people. The scale is still small.

I’m convinced we can increase adoption by framing their role in the app layer better.

Framed properly, the app layer can sound like this:

“We build worlds without Gensler and worlds beyond the reach of the FDA or NRC or FAA”.

That’s what I found resonates and it’s simpler to grasp than all the sovereignty talk.

Balaji and Network School put the movement on the map. Now it’s time to increase the map’s resolution. Focus on the app layer, and what L1s/L2s empower them.

Adults ask “what is it?” Kids ask “what can I do with it?”

That’s the right question for the next phase. What are you a L1/L2 for? What technological development or industry, or type of community or real estate, are you enabling?

Another way to put it: stranded assets for stranded technologies.

Balaji said the network state is real estate. Stranded assets are ideal because they’re cheap, like Próspera bought a golf resort, the Network School moved to a ghost town.

Network cities unlock stranded technologies by repurposing stranded assets.

The Path Forward

Balaji is right to cast a wide net. Some cultural and community-first projects will evolve toward legal autonomy or building on top of it. Most won’t, and that’s okay.

But let’s be clear: legal autonomy is the equivalent of on-chain, the difference between deployed and theoretical, between talking about sovereignty and unbundling it.

Singapore proved we’re growing in awareness. Now we need to deploy with focus.

Let’s talk less about co-living houses and popup cities—and more about gene therapies reaching patients, real-world crypto adoption and DeFi for mortgages or small business loans, drones delivering packages, construction robots building housing. I propose an X-Prize for the first small, modular nuclear power reactor deployed in a network city.

Next year’s conference should lean further into the app layer, i.e. companies building technology in ways they can’t deploy anywhere else or only under great duress.

That’s the currency of progress. That’s the customer of network societies.

Niklas Anzinger is the founder and CEO of Infinita City, building a network city for longevity biotech acceleration in Prospera, Honduras.

Upcoming Events

Oct 11 - Nov 11: Solana Venture Launch

Nov 18-25: Bitchill Island Retreat

Feb 1 - Mar 31, 2026: Infinite Games

In my last piece, I outlined the main challenges startup society founders face. This time, I want to propose a business model that could solve some of those: stablecoins.

The idea comes from direct experience: issuing the $LIVES token, a USDC-pegged payment system in Próspera, now widely used by 40+ vendors on Roatán (see here).

This model is novel, and I expect objections. Still, it strikes me as a valuable experiment to overcome some of the challenges laid out in the previous piece, e.g. the fundability for real estate, land etc., and the cold start problem of high entry barriers.

The Case for Stablecoins

Stablecoin transaction volume already surpassed Visa and Mastercard in 2024, about $27-28 trillion processed. The USG has passed enabling legislation, and stablecoins are poised to power global financial markets on-chain, realising the promise of borderless low-cost transactions, transparency, and potential separation of state and money.

Few major issuers exist, but that’s already changing because it’s a powerful business model and the US enabling legislation. Tether alone reported $5.2 billion in profit in the first half of 2024, with fewer than 150 employees. If it achieved the same IPO valuation as Circle, Tether would rank among the world’s top five companies by market capitalization.

With US enabling legislation, the world is becoming multi-stablecoin (see episode here). Stablecoins resemble private banks: they hold deposits, issue a currency, and earn yield on reserves.

Historically, central banks displaced private banks. Startup societies can reclaim that role by offering opt-in alternatives. At $100m in reserves, a 5-10% yield means $5-10m in annual revenue. From there, you can build financial products, loans and conservative investments.

See where this is going?

Why Stablecoins Can Power Startup Societies

1.- Issuing a stablecoin is straightforward. Open a multisig with a reserve vault and launch the token (We started with $250k and issued 250k tokens on Solana). Próspera’s regulatory environment makes this easier, adding early credibility and oversight.

2.- You can show early traction Token launch platforms give visibility and analytics (see Solscan), letting you track transaction volume. If members use the token, you have real metrics for your startup society’s activity.

(Example of our $LIVES token dashboard.)

3.- Vendor adoption is easy. Restaurants, hotels and transport services want more customers. You bring them business, fuel the local economy, and provide easy redemption in local currency (Aleph/Crecimiento in Buenos Aires had this insight first, and we experienced the same thing in Roatan by doing it ourselves).

4. The vault can become the basis of your financial system. It will be a decision how conservative you want to be, but real estate or mortgage loans are not the highest-risk investments. From your stablecoin vault, you can fund the real estate buildout. As your portfolio grows, you can borrow more against real assets, cashflow etc.

The Challenges to Overcome

1.- User adoption. Vendors adopt easily; users are harder. The core question: why use your token instead of USDC, USD or the local currency?

Three answers:

• Aspirational. The token signals identity: “this is my community.” In our case, $LIVES is the currency for people who don’t want to die (of course, not every participant in the economy needs to buy into that moral premise).
  
  

• Crypto alternative to fiat: Vendors in your zone may not know USDC or Tether yet. You educate them, enabling crypto-native payments. Crypto-native is better for your users, but someone has to invest in vendor crypto education.
  
  

• Incentives. To offset friction, you need upside:

  • Control UX with your own tooling (e.g. Infinita Wallet).

  • Finance discounts via vendor commissions (bulk demand).

  • Reward early users with equity-like tokens in the society

We haven’t launched the equity token yet, but Próspera’s regulatory framework makes it feasible. Rewarding the early community is a common path in crypto (see e.g. Venice).

(Venice is an example of how stablecoin + equity-like tokens can combine.)

2.- Early traction. Scaling beyond a pilot takes serious capital, $10-100m. One path is a new instrument: investors stake tokens in exchange for equity equal to the yield they forgo. Example: commit $10m for five years, receive ~5% per year in equity ($2.5m). This mirrors traditional startup equity economics, but with downside protection from real estate and land. It’s also a good vehicle for Balaji’s idea of a community “that crowdfunds territory around the world”. Stablecoins and programmable money makes that easier than fiat platforms.

This exact model hasn’t been tried yet, but I don’t see obvious barriers.

It seems some version of forgoing yield as investment is a big part of what’s underlying the recent much talked about Flying Tulip $200m seed round (see here).

3.- Commercial upside beyond the token. You won’t build a multi-billion dollar stablecoin by competing with USDC or Tether on security or market penetration. Their market is global trading; yours is the physical economy of your members and their partners. That means the upside must come from the value your community creates for the world.

In our case: a network of special regulatory zones for patient treatments and trial data, for example. Longevity clinics accept the token; patients may still want to pay in USD, but the backend converts to stablecoin. This way it still shows up in your network state dashboard.

This model is not easy, but potentially an improvement

Does this mean you need more than one business model or layer on risk in other ways than your core product? Normally you’d avoid that in a venture-funded startup. You shouldn’t really innovate on fundraising or governance, or layer on non-core product risk.

However, in the world of startup societies you’re not competing with easy horizontal SaaS businesses. You’re competing with a traditional real estate funding model.

For example, Próspera has to take on real estate funding and asset management, and it’s challenging to square with venture funding and culture (see my earlier piece). Prospera has to sell a lot of equity, and the cash is locked up in short-term unproductive land and not investing in technology or business development. You’re sacrificing a lot of cash/equity for the long-term.

Compared to this model, the stablecoin model could be nimbler, and more aligned with building a unified, tech-forward startup culture & a possibly better fundraising mechanism.

Your fundraising and growth path can look like the following:

1. Start with a small $1-5m pre-seed/seed round: issue the token, put $250-500k in the vault, show traction in the form of 200+ daily transactions from in-person living together.

2. Raise $10m (for $2.5m equity) for the land & real estate fund: from this you can probably allocate $3-5m for the first set of buildings & land purchases, give loans to residents etc.

3. Series-A: raise $20-50m in equity and $50m+ in token stakings, this is now a serious amount of money to build residential and commercial real estate for 100-500+ people.

And series-B+ you can imagine from there.

Proof Points Needed

The main three proof points required are:

• Will early investors accept the stake-for-equity model?

• Will regulators allow vaults backed with non-cash assets?

• Is user adoption sustainable vs. other stablecoin alternatives?

Conclusion

The stablecoin model doesn’t remove all difficulties, real estate asset management may not be avoidable and you still have to succeed at building a unique advantage of your economy tied to its location and the value creation of its residents. But the model is promising by offering easy early traction metrics, internet-native distribution mechanisms (e.g. token listings) and the upside of programmable money as the underpinning of the society’s financial system.

I will report back as we learn from $LIVES adoption.