Crypto Bro and Alleged Fraudster Appointed Leader of a Tiny “Micronation” in Eastern Europe

What happens in Liberland stays in Liberland.

Liber Free

A crypto bro who’s been accused of fraud has just become one of the most powerful men in a 2.7-square-mile, self-proclaimed “micronation” of Liberland.

As Quartz reports, crypto network Tron founder Justin Sun was elected this week in a so-called “blockchain-based election” as the Speaker of Congress for the tiny state wedged on previously unclaimed wetlands between Croatia and Serbia.

Shortly thereafter, the disputed country‘s Czech-born right-wing libertarian president and founder Vít Jedlička nominated Sun to be the country’s prime minister as well, effectively putting him in charge of two of Liberland’s three most powerful positions.

“The election process, governed by a simple set of rules, was entirely algorithmic, providing transparency,” reads a statement from Liberland’s spokespeople, per Cointelegraph. “This system has a unique ability to eliminate doubt regarding election outcomes, a challenge faced by many countries still relying on traditional methods.”

Yes, we’re aware that this all sounds like madlibs — and reader, we’re just getting started.

Baby Country

Sun, as Quartz notes, gained notoriety in the crypto world last year when the US Securities and Exchange Commission accused him and his assorted companies — which, strangely enough, also includes the firm formerly known as BitTorrent — of illegally manipulating the price of Tron tokens to inflate their value.

Despite all this, Jedlička insists that the Tron founder’s blockchain expertise is what the nine-year-old micronation needs to become decentralized, which has been its goal since the Czech libertarian founded the so-called “anarcho-capitalist utopia” in April 2015.

According to a 2023 deep dive from Cointelegraph, Jedlička found out about the tiny tract of land that was to become his country by literally Googling “terra nullius,” the Latin for “no man’s land,” in 2014. It’s hard to say how many people inhabit the tiny microstate because its website only makes passing mention of its permanent inhabitants as “campers, adventurers, and people living on ships.”

As the country’s founder and president told the crypto website last year, Liberland will eventually be entirely blockchain-based — and again, we’re not quite sure how that works out, either.

“Everything, including Congress, the land registry, the courts system and budgeting, will be registered on the blockchain,” Jedlička told Cointelegraph. “This will allow for all decisions to be transparent and to happen at speed.”

With this election — which also saw a journalist, an entrepreneur, a former Croatian politician, and an IT professor being voted into the tiny country’s Congress — it appears that Liberland is pushing forward with its goal of being a state fully based on the blockchain.

While admittedly strange, we can’t say that this is much weirder than what’s going on in the United States’ upcoming elections — and hey, at least Liberland doesn’t have an outdated Electoral College system to contend with.

More on elections of the future: Deranged Mayor Promises “No More Fat People” With Free Ozempic Shots