Bitcoin investor offers Nevis residents $100 a month to back his libertarian ‘free city’ development

A wealthy Bitcoin investor seeking to establish a libertarian community on the Caribbean island of Nevis has offered to pay every resident $100 per month should the government approve his development project.

According to a report in the Financial Times, Olivier Janssens — the driving force behind the planned community known as “Destiny” — told subscribers to his mailing list that payments would begin “immediately once the final agreement with the government is approved, which we expect to happen very soon.”

The email, sent last Sunday, noted that Destiny had always intended to distribute 5% of its profits to Nevis residents, including children — but that, since “meaningful profit-sharing may take time as the project grows,” Janssens wished to accelerate the arrangement.

The proposed monthly sum represents a significant increase from the 30 East Caribbean dollars — equivalent to approximately $11 — per person that Janssens had proposed back in November 2025.

The email did not specify how long the $100 payments would continue, though the figure amounts to $4,800 per year for a family of four.

Opponents of the project on the island were quick to condemn the offer. Carlisle Powell, a former minister with the Nevis Reform Party (NRP), currently in opposition, described the proposal as “purely coercive” and said it was designed to pressure officials into advancing the scheme.

Powell argued the offer amounted to a calculated attempt to force both the island’s premier and the federal prime minister of St Kitts and Nevis to risk their political standing if they refused to let Destiny proceed.

NRP member Kelvin Daly was more pointed in his assessment, writing on Facebook that the offer constituted “influence-buying: a blatant attempt by a private real estate developer to interfere in our country’s internal socio-economic and political affairs.”

“If a private real estate developer, whenever he cannot get everything he wants, is allowed to offer public bribes openly designed to pressure the government to act in his favour,” Daly wrote, “we are finished.”

Described by the island’s government as a multi-billion-dollar undertaking, Destiny envisions a sweeping transformation of Nevis’s southern coastline, encompassing villas, medical clinics, and extensive new infrastructure.

The project targets the acquisition of approximately 2,400 acres — roughly one-tenth of the island’s total land area.

Janssens has spoken openly about the libertarian philosophy underpinning Destiny. At a question-and-answer session with a group of Nevisians, he distilled its founding principle to a single line: “You can do whatever you want, as long as you don’t infringe on the rights of others.”

The broad powers granted to developers under the legislation enabling such projects have unsettled many islanders, a number of whom fear that Destiny could effectively become a state within a state.

Janssens has dismissed those concerns, insisting that Destiny will be open to all islanders and will ultimately remain subject to the government’s jurisdiction. St Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Terrance Drew pledged this week to amend the relevant legislation.

Nevis Premier Mark Brantley has continued to champion the project, forwarding the agreement signed with the company to the federal government for approval.

Although St Kitts and Nevis form a single federation, Nevis maintains its own administration, premier, and parliament for internal affairs.

Brantley confirmed that foreigners purchasing property within Destiny would be required to pay fees under Nevis’s citizenship-by-investment programme — regardless of whether they sought citizenship. That programme requires a minimum investment of $250,000 in the island’s economy.

He added that even buyers who opted for citizenship would be barred from voting, given that they would be living in “a special zone with special rules that apply to them.” As Brantley put it: “We told them, ‘You cannot have one foot in and one foot out.'”

Janssens indicated that Destiny might propose “its own efficient court systems for certain matters,” but acknowledged it would “still have to comply” with the national legal framework.

The community forms part of a broader trend in which wealthy figures from the technology and cryptocurrency sectors are pursuing what has become known as the “network state” movement — an effort to establish enclaves governed by more libertarian principles.

Several local politicians have raised concerns about the fact that Sharon Brantley, wife of the Nevis premier, is the real estate agent who assisted Janssens with his land acquisitions on the island.

The development, which features a series of terraced green spaces and pools, was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill — the architectural firm behind 7 World Trade Center in New York and the Broadgate Tower in London.

Janssens told the New York Post that properties within Destiny would be priced between $500,000 and $3 million.