Absence of territory in the natural-accepted-actual sense

A virtual state is a state lacking a physical geographical territory, which its foundations are entirely exist and encoded in a blockchain infrastructure that essentially constitutes its cyber “geography”. The virtual state is intended to create a new space with an autonomic and independent laws and jurisdiction systems and management, outside the existing frameworks accepted in the real world. This rise countless interesting possibilities of governance methods, ownership and management of community life for any group size, allowing it to come as close as possible to a virtual-cybernetic autarkic economy in the sense of providing virtual state services¹.

The person accustomed to thinking in terms of “seeing and touching” will have difficulty grasping the cyber evolution and the mental transition that humanity has been going through in recent decades. It took quite a few years before people were willing to confidently write their credit card details into a website, sleep well at night, and after a few weeks receive an invitation to the post office to receive the product they ordered. What seems natural today, such as a trip to the Himalayas while video chatting with a wave surfer on the beach in San Diego California in the United States, was considered unimaginable a few decades ago.

Here is an example demonstrating the mental leap required: If you ask a person who is used to the old way of thinking, what is the most expensive real estate in the world, they will most likely refer to some luxury apartment in Manhattan, New York, or an apartment in Tokyo, etc. But if you ask this question to a person who already thinks “cybernetically”², they will probably tell you that the most expensive real estate in the world is the Google home page.

Therefore, turning to the “old” and “traditional” sources such as literature on international law and international relations, is perceived by the visionaries of the next generation of the cyber world and the metaverse as something anachronistic. Cryptocurrencies and online commerce are developing at a fast pace, and it’s only a matter of time until the concept of the virtual state (or the cryptographic state) enters the mind as something normal and acceptable, as “how we could do without it before?”

Nevertheless, we will examine how the “old” world perceived the concept of the state of the last century. Since states are considered independent and sovereign entities, we examine the literature dealing with public international law and international relations.

Today, international law requires that an actual state meet four criteria necessary for its recognition:

A ruling given in the real Israel in 2003³ refers to the concept of a virtual state as a state that does not exist, but it does not speak of a virtual state such as the virtual Israel 2 example. Even Bitcoin was unknown then.

However, as stated above, the virtual country has a cybernetic “Territory” only, and its nation, like any multicultural nation, and its government like any other government or executive body, and those who want to recognize it, are welcome to do so, and those who don’t, don’t have to, just like any other real country with a “land” (territory). As we see, trading in Bitcoin is with high capacity worldwide even without the recognition of other countries or entities in its validity or existence.

The element of free and voluntary social consent

A virtual state is based on consent. The applicant for citizenship of a virtual country agrees to obey its laws and waive the protection provided by the real country as long as he “lives and conducts himself” in the virtual country in front of the citizens of the virtual country.

The value of the virtual state, as well as the value of its currency, is determined by consensus, and by supply and demand – just like a cryptocurrency, or like any real state. A person will not be inclined to trade the currency of a failed state, whose currency value is unstable, and whose value is unlikely to be valuable in the foreseeable future. This is why in times of economic turmoil in the world, there is an influx into gold, as its intrinsic value is maintained by being a resource that is difficult to obtain and has an inelastic demand.

There is no obligation to be a citizen of a virtual state, just as there is no obligation to join a golf club or buy this or that ice cream flavor. The citizens of the virtual state are the ones who give it its moral, cultural, economic, and all other state’s values.

The virtual country has real citizens, but they do not necessarily have a territorial affinity. For example, there are Israeli citizens who live and reside in Israel, but hold additional foreign citizenship of another real state, and who have never even visited it. They do not pay taxes in that foreign state, they are judged according to the laws of the real state in which they actually live, and they also obey the laws of the real state.

Therefore, there is no obstacle to a person living on the moon being a citizen of a virtual state, as long as he has the opportunity to maintain contact with the virtual state’s institutions, and with the citizens with whom he chooses to have any kind of contact – friendly, commercial, personal, and alike.

The more citizens the virtual state has, who create its value, and its institutions, business and manufacturing community’s value, the more people are expected to want to be citizens of the virtual state. As the population grows, the productive, value-based, and commercial power of the virtual state will increase, as will its currency. All of this will allow the virtual country to prosper and provide its citizens with better services.

A virtual state citizen will be required to obey the virtual state’s laws. It is clear that applying the virtual state’s laws – conflicts resolving – and enforcement, are essentially different from those of the real state, and for this, see the the virtual state legal system description and legislation in detail. After all, a person who loses a trial and does not obey the court ruling, will not be subject to virtual enforcement sanctions, but only to losing his citizenship of the virtual state.

1. It is clear and obvious that we are not talking about real aspects, such as real housing, real food, and the like, but only services, such as economics, commerce, culture, education, medicine (but real hospitals), and everything that can be provided digitally in cyberspace. ↩︎
2. That is, a person for whom the cyberspace is part of the natural everyday world in which he lives and thinks, and works, regardless of his real world. These two worlds – the real and the cybernetic – are united and mentally inseparable, and they are as one for him. ↩︎
3. Criminal Lawsuit 1920/02 State of Israel Vs. Vladimir Zlatolovsky, 22.Oct.2003 ↩︎