A GROUP of self-described anarchists, libertarians and Ron Paul supporters fleeing the crumbling world economic system have founded Galt's Gulch, a community in Chile inspired by Ayn Rand's “Atlas Shrugged”—and with an economy based entirely on Bitcoin.Or that's the goal, anyway."Ourfarm workers and suppliers still want to get paid in pesos,” Ken Johnson, the project’s founder and managing partner, explains."But Bitcoin as the John Galt coin?Why shouldn't it be?”Should the Lions pick all 15 players from one team?A new front in the legal fight over Donald Trump’s travel banQatar Airways wants a 10% stake in American AirlinesIreland and Afghanistan become the first new Test nations in 17 yearsWhy calculating a British parliamentary majority is so trickyHumanist nuptials are popular in Scotland but only beginning in UlsterIf the world economic system "goes sideways," as Mr Johnson puts it, residents will retreat to their self-sufficient gated community, where they will enjoy a shooting range, equestrian facilities, and spa and fitness center.

The 6,874-hectare site (pictured) also includes a 100-hectare farm, although it is not clear who will pick the lettuce when the world ends.Galt's Gulch Chile—a name impossible for local Spanish-speakers to pronounce—will also boast an innovation centre, where expatriate libertarian dentists and chiropractors may ply their trade.bitcoin backingIn exchange for Bitcoin, of course.In the event the world economic system fails to collapse on schedule, however, Mr Johnson has a plan B—his new trademark, Galt's Gulch Organics.bitcoin wall street journal 2015"The farm came with 65 hectares of lemons," he says.ethereum video tutorial"The US and Japanese markets pay a premium for organic, non-GMO produce."visa ceo bitcoin

Plans are in the works to plant herbs, spices, fruit, nuts, and vineyards, and organic certification is not far off.A quirk of Chilean law makes land, mining and water rights independent of each other.Mr Johnson made sure to acquire all three, particularly the water rights.bitcoin news silk road"In the future, wars will be fought over water," he says.litecoin quoteTwo rivers border the land, and the community sits atop 56 known water wells.bitcoin mining tips tricksGalt's Gulch bottled mineral water may soon be in the offing.bitcoin sekarangMr Johnson is also building guest haciendas to house not only prospective buyers, but also, he hopes, tourists.Set in a secluded valley 17 kilometres from Curacavi, Chile, on the road between Santiago and the luxurious beach resort of Viña del Mar, Galt's Gulch is a mere forty-five minutes by car from the Santiago airport, but, as Mr Johnson says, "it feels like you're at the end of the Earth."bitcoin founder dies

Yet his goal is not isolationist, he adds."We're not trying to hide from the world.In fact we want people to find us.”Indeed, of the 430 lots for sale, only 12% have sold so far, and Mr Johnson is marketing vigorously to the libertarian and Bitcoin communities.Lots are priced in both dollars and Bitcoin, with big discounts for buyers who pay in that crypto-currency.Many early adopters of Bitcoin find themselves sitting on small fortunes, and Mr Johnson hopes to tempt them to diversify into real estate.So far nine clients have paid in Bitcoin, totaling around $1.5m in revenue.Mr Johnson, a former California real estate agent and evangelist of water ionizers (devices supposed to slow aging and prevent disease, but derided as snake oil by many scientists) has become something of a celebrity in libertarian circles.Authors such as Ben Swann, Josh Tolley, Luke Rudkowski, Bob Murphy, Angela Keaton, Tatiana Moroz and Wendy McElroy have visited the site of his future utopia, and a television production company is pitching a documentary series on the community.Most buyers so far, he says, are expats or second-home buyers.

For Mr Johnson, the appeal is easy to explain."It's like California, only forty or fifty years ago.Feels like you've stepped back in time.” Mr Johnson plans to break ground in 2014, and estimates five years to fulfill his vision of a place where he can "live and let live, thrive and let thrive.”Why does he think his project will succeed where similar schemes have failed?"We're a freedom-minded community, but we're not trying to create a sovereign state," he explains."We pay our taxes, we obey the law.Our goal is to lessen the effect of the rest of the world without telling the world to go take a flying leap."Asfor Ayn Rand, just how much have her ideas influenced the community's design?Mr Johnson admits he never finished “Atlas Shrugged”."I'm not actually much of a reader," he says."Watched the movie and skimmed the Cliff's Notes, though.Former Bitcoin Foundation director Jon Matonis doesn't waste any time asserting that his new employer is seeking to disrupt bitcoin's established development process.

Matonis, who joined the secretive startup nChain today, is quick to state that this is the ambition of the London and Vancouver-based operation he now claims has 60 full-time employees, including infamous developer Craig Wright.As reported by Reuters, nChain was started by Wright, the 46-year-old computer scientist who claims to be bitcoin's pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto (though he hasn't offered much evidence).To date, nChain hasn't offered much to support its assertions that it's now the industry's best-funded startup either, hinting only that it has received more than $100m from Malta-based high-tech private equity fund SICAV plc as part of an acquisition.Yet, it's a different company that Matonis has in mind in conversation – San Francisco-based blockchain services firm Blockstream.Long the subject of criticism for the significant financial support it provides to developers working on bitcoin's open-source protocol and its primary implementation Bitcoin Core, Blockstream has been villainized for that group's roadmap for scaling bitcoin, specifically its decision to prioritize innovations that don't alter a hard-coded limit on block size.

"I immediately recognized nChain would be an effective challenger to Blockstream, which is definitely needed in the space."In conversation, Matonis echoes a familiar refrain, that Blockstream and Bitcoin Core are too intertwined, and that Core's roadmap doesn't have broad community support.In Matonis's view, bitcoin can once again return to the days when its blockchain was able to quickly clear its backlog of transactions with virtually no fees, while providing more advanced scripting languages – if only other software implementations gain transaction.Yet, in conversation, Matonis backed away from the idea that nChain was "taking aim" at Blockstream, despite his frequent barbs aimed at the company.Rather, Matonis spoke broadly of what he clarified is nChain's broader attempt to introduce choice into a bitcoin software market he described as in need of competition."There's a lot of resistance to the Blockstream model of pushing everything to a second layer, pushing SegWit and Lightning as the only solutions," he said: "We don't have to settle for just one approach."

Such comments come at time when alternative blockchain networks have come to show progress on flashier, more publicly popular updates to their technology, a development that stands in contrast to bitcoin's now years-long scaling debate and offers some weight to critiques of Core's model.For example, ethereum is hard at work on innovations that would find it redefining how large blockchain networks reach consensus, while litecoin has more quickly adopted innovations originally intended for increasing bitcoin's transaction capacity.(Though it would be wrong to say Core developers aren't progressing).However, ethereum, which lacks a reference implementation, is seen as more welcoming to alternatives, as its parity and geth clients allow developers a choice between competing softwares.(The benefit, proponents say, is that in instances of attack, should one fail, the other could emerge unaffected).Former Bitcoin Core developers Gavin Andresen and Jeff Garzik, for instance, are two voices that have supported the idea, the latter calling multiple implementations "healthier than a homogeneous monoculture" with one reference implementation.

Against this backdrop, phase one of the nChain's action plan is to release a software development kit (SDK) that Matonis said will likely be given away for free as a means of proliferating alternatives to Bitcoin Core, used today by 85% of network nodes.Matonis said the SDK will offer users the ability to boot up "specialized nodes" that would enable faster block propagation, a feature he contends would make scaling the bitcoin blockchain through a block size increase easier while appealing to node operators."The SDK is going to enable on-chain scaling for bitcoin without degrading decentralization," Matonis said.Already, he said nChain has been in talks with miners about the idea.But, how does this work within bitcoin's existing architecture?According to Matonis, nChain's SDK will be different from newer Bitcoin Core competitors including Bitcoin Unlimited and Bcoin, which he framed as being more compatible with Core.Bitcoin Unlimited, for example, is a version of Bitcoin Core with new features added.

Likewise, BCoin was built from scratch, but to be compatible with Bitcoin Core."nChain allows for other developers to build their own implementations using the techniques and innovations that we've tested here," Matonis continued.In this way, Matonis suggested that nChain believes it could gain enough traction on the network to become a popular implementation for other developers, thereby getting rid of the notion that one implementation is big enough to be called a reference at all."Our mission is to separate the protocol from its one true reference."Asked how the strategy would impact the bitcoin network, Matonis said that nChain's software will enable network stakeholders to choose between the two implementations, a development that he projects could spur a network split if successful.Should nChain launch its implementation to widespread adoption, Matonis suggested that miners and node operators could be forced to choose between two competing versions of bitcoin's blockchain history – one kept by Bitcoin Core and the other by nChain.

"This is the governance model for bitcoin, there’s no other governance model.If you can't get traction with pull requests, you launch software propagation battles, and when one reference implementation has greater than 50% or 75%, you can attempt a fork of the network," Matonis explained.Such a scenario has long been the subject of fears in the bitcoin development community.For example, the idea that a hard fork could possibly disrupt the validity of the bitcoin blockchain was factor cited by Bitcoin Core developers in their support for their proposed scaling solutions.But, given the risk of creating two separate bitcoin assets in the process, why not build a competing blockchain network?According to Matonis, the answer is hashing power.While cryptocurrency markets such as ethereum and litecoin have recently hit notable highs, it's bitcoin's miners that Matonis believes makes it more valuable."It will make bitcoin more competitive against altcoins," Matonis said of the implementation, invoking the idea that the design is similar to that seen in the open-source Linux project.

Still, Matonis reports nChain is working on larger goals to make bitcoin useful beyond just being a store of value, one he suggested would have greater societal benefits."I want to elevate the sector beyond fintech to a more general computation market for enterprise computing," he said, concluding: "We're still a small group fighting in the weeds.I’m looking beyond, there’s a much larger market across many verticals."Disclosure: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which has an ownership stake in Blockstream and Purse, the creators of Bcoin.The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is an independent media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies.Interested in offering your expertise or insights to our reporting?Contact us at [email protected]/* */.