ɃITNATION Whitepaper

BySusanneTarkowskiTempelhof

With thanks to, amongst others, Rick Falkvinge and Jason Farrell for comments, additions, and

revisions.

Decentralized - Borderless - Voluntary - Nations (DBVNs)

ɃITNATION: Governance 2.0 > Borderless > Decentralized > Voluntary

This Whitepaper is open for community input - please give your thoughts and ideas through adding

comments. Non-constructive comments will be removed. A final White paper will be produced, based

on community input, after the crowd sale close, on January 10th, 2015.

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For more details on the BITNATION platform and services, please see the DEV Plan.

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For more on the BITNATION business strategy and financials, please see the BIZ Plan.

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For further information on the XBNX Crowdsale, please see the TERMS Paper

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Index

1. Abstract

1.1. Governance 1.0

1.2. Governance 2.0

2. Distributed Borderless Voluntary Nations (DBVN’s)

2.1. DBVN Definition

3. BitNation

3.1. Bitnation Overview

4. Bitnation Human and Regional Architecture

4.1. Ambassador Network and Embassies

4.2. The World's FIRST Self-Governance Co-creation Platform.

5. Conclusion

1



1. Abstract

1.1TheCurrentStateofAffairs:Governance1.0



Governance 1.0: We refer to governance 1.0 as the involuntary combination of governance and             

geographical territory. To clarify, a governance entity  democratic, authoritarian, theocratic or other type             

of entity  is a body which (successfully or unsuccessfully) claims a monopoly on violence over a specific                 

geographic territory, and in return they commonly provide various degrees of governance services such as              

security, dispute resolution, and law enforcement to their subjects. More often than not, they also claim a                

monopoly on these services, even though the services themselves are often poorly executed or             

nonexistent.



Geographic Governance Monopolies Throughout History.

Governments with geographic monopolies have been the rule through most of human civilization,            

their borders determined largely by the reach of their weapons technology. Since peoples within the              

borders of a city state, kingdom or nation state tended to have shared culture, history, language and                

values, with little means of communication outside their own communities, cohesion was relatively easy.             

In Europe, the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) established the nation state construct as the standard for               

governance in the West; spreading globally in the 19th century largely through imperial expansion. By the               

20th century, the nation state had supplanted vast empires, as well as unincorporated territories and              

smaller ethnic states such as those in Italy and Germany; creating an of oligopoly of governance and                

claiming nearly every square meter of the globe (apart from Antarctica). The initial intention was to have                

mutually recognized borders and international institutions to resolve conflicts peacefully. However good           

the intentions may have been, with the rise of political elites creating just a semblance of political                

stability,thebordersthemselvesbecameasourceofconflictandresultedinfuelinginstability.



Compounding property rights and other governance issues is the fact that nation state borders             

continue to represent oppression to millions. The tensions created by arbitrarily drawn state borders are              

perhaps exemplified by the illconceived SykesPicot agreement (1916). During the last years of the ailing              

Ottoman Empire, international borders in the Middle East were crudely drawn pursuant to colonial             

2

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interests of the period and have exacerbated ethnic and religious conflict. Even though the ongoing              

human tragedy exacerbated by the SykesPicot borders is clear to the world, changing decadesold             

international boundaries that are supported by political interests and international demand for stability is             

virtuallyimpossible.



TheMythofChoice



Some suggest that individuals living in deplorable conditions are free to “vote with their feet” and               

move from one country to another to avoid oppression, famine, and other problems. This obtuse and               

simplistic remedy rarely proves so simple in reality, primarily because truly free and unencumbered             

movement between countries does not exist. For a farmer in the Central African Republic or a fruit                

vendor in Bangladesh, obtaining foreign visas or citizenship can be an insurmountable obstacle. Even             

whentheydo,theyoftenfindlittlechangesfromonegovernmenttothenext.

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Even in more prosperous countries such as the U.S., political stagnation may in large part be the                

result of the confines of nationstatehood. Politicizing government services and forcing conflicting           

political visions on a very diverse population has led the U.S. down the path of dysfunction, inhibited                

social mobility, higher debt and lower economic growth; it has driven a wedge between people who               

otherwisemayhavelittlereasonforanimosity.



Enormous swaths of the global population are forced to support laws and policies they may detest               

simply because political leaders can convince more than half the voting population of a nation state that                

preserving a miserable status quo is vital to their security or interests. In response, hundreds of separatist                

movements have gained traction and asserted a right to independence from central governments viewed as              

despotic, oppressive, or at least ineffective. The Arab Spring, the Scottish independence referendum, the             

Catalan independence movement, protests in Hong Kong, the growth of Islamic terrorist networks and             

nativist movements in Europe have all been the diverse symptoms of a global power struggle exacerbated               

by ossified nation states that have remained unwilling or unable to ensure economic mobility and political               

choice.⁴



http://www.npr.org/2014/06/25/325503790/journalistdexterfilkinsexplainsbitterconsequencesofiraqwar

⁴ (enter ref to free world report)

3



TheImpactofGlobalization

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The geographical monopoly on governance was perhaps easier to maintain in a time and age              

before industrialization and globalization happened. Now however, the course is largely irreversible; with            

the seemingly unstoppable move towards globalization, the world has become increasingly less           

geographically contingent  through international trade, instant and borderless connectivity through          

communication channels like Internet, cheap transport, and large migrant movements. People are           

increasingly connected across borders, resulting in desires less defined by their geographical origin or             

location. In essence, this means that over time, nation states and their transnational counterparts such as               

the United Nations (UN) are becoming less relevant, and transnational institutions such as the United              

Nations (UN), in tandem with nation states due to being built on the same outdated, topdown               

monopolistic foundation. The Westphalia system has a “best before” date, and that day has arrived. Why               

should 7.125 billion people on Earth only be able to choose between perhaps a handful of different types                 

of governance and without freedom of movement between those options? The limited choice of             

governance systems does not necessarily make sense to the modern global citizen. Enter the birth of               

DecentralizedBorderlessVoluntaryNations(DBVNs). 



Entertheblockchaintechnology



Technology is changing human interaction almost faster than scholars, pundits and journalists can            

keep up with, resulting in the uniting of humans around the globe in an unfathomably complex web of                 

relationships. New “borderless” nations are emerging: communities of people who live all over the world              

and who share common values, interests, and cultures. We believe that given the right opportunity, these               

new nations will thrive as geopolitical turmoil continues to constrict the old. With the release in 2009 of                 

Bitcoin’s blockchain technology, enabling for the first time a way to verify transactions without a single               

authoritative third party, now may be the best time in human history to reassess our reliance on the                 

traditional nation state  a form of governance that is growing outdated, and which is holding back human                 

socialandeconomicevolution.



The reason why the blockchain matters is because the blockchain transactional database has the             

basic recordkeeping properties required of a governance system. Once the information is online, it exists              

forever on the network. The blockchain has a rigorous verification process that is virtually impossible to               

4

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crack once the network reaches a certain critical mass. It can record births, marriages, deaths, property               

ownership, business contracts and a variety of other records traditionally created and held by             

governments. The identities of individuals on the network can be established definitively through their             

unique “signatures”, and in turn, those individuals can sign and verify transactions (e.g. the attending              

physician at your birth or the priest officiating your wedding). Instead of a government official acting as                

notaryorothertrustedthirdpartyverifier,theconsensusoftheblockchainnowtakesonthatrole.



It is well established that free markets improve quality and reduce cost, while monopolies are              

generally the subject of derision, a centralization of resources and authority. We believe that it is possible                

for today’s innovators to apply the competitive spirit of the marketplace to governance and forever end               

the power of monopolistic bureaucracies to squander resources, abuse authority, and oppress the            

powerless. By offering real choices rather than controlling and determining the outcomes through central             

government nation states, entrepreneurs can enable the reclamation of personal sovereignty and enhance            

theirownautonomy.



ABetterFuture



To that end, BitNation proposes the creation of a platform that will enable the emergence of               

Decentralized Borderless Voluntary Nations (DBVNs). This platform is entirely open source and           

forkable, allowing practically anyone to create their own DBVN. We hope that BitNation will be only the                

first of many



alternatives to traditional monopolistic governance to use blockchain verification qualities as             

a replacement for the “third party” authority hitherto monopolized by governments. We believe the             

establishment of property rights, marriage, incorporation, identification, dispute resolution and other          

governance services can be accomplished without resorting to abhorrent behavior such as bribery,            

exorbitant fees, politicization and coercion through arbitrary authorities. Beyond the aforementioned, the           

possibilitieswithDBVNsarebothencouragingandvirtuallylimitless.



1.2TheChangeofParadigm:Governance2.0



5



Governance 2.0: We refer to governance 2.0 as the dissociation of geography and governance, as              

well as the voluntary choice between governance service providers. Governance 2.0 allows for a plurality              

oflegalsystemstocompeteonafreemarketofferingmorefairservicestoitsmembercitizens.

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Modern society indicates patterns of behaviors that are not likely to drastically change in a Governance               

2.0context,leadingtotheassumptionthat:

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● The majority of people do want various degrees of governance services; some want more and              

somewantless,ornoneatall

● The majority of people want an easy choice of governance service providers  e.g. an endtoend               

solution instead of having to chose between every single service provider themselves.           

Aggregationofservicesisakeypartofthesolution.

● Many people do not wish to leave their geographical area because of their attachment to their               

family, friends, work situation, and culture. Relocation should not be a requirement to choose             

yourgovernanceserviceprovider.

● The existing blockchain technology enables governance 2.0 in its function of being a            

cryptographicallysecurepublicledger.

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BlockchainTechnologyfromaBirds’EyeView