Islands as interstitial encrypted geographies: Making (and failing) cryptosecessionist exits

Initiatives to build juridically autonomous cities based on libertarian and anarcho-capitalist ideals have proliferated in the last decade. These include seasteading, charter cities, and “free private cities.” These ventures are part of a movement to build so-called “start-up societies,” which proposes developing experimental, small-scale communities to explore alternatives to the nation-state. Many such projects have turned to islands and island-creation as an interstitial space in which their experiments could unfold and benefit from being located within, but juridically autonomous from, sovereign state territories. Such experiments are linked to and build on the earlier use of islands for plantations, military bases, special economic zones (SEZs) and offshoring. These ventures also often rely on, and are shaped by, blockchain and cryptocurrencies and create what Isabelle Simpson theorizes as “encrypted geographies.” In this article, we seek to better understand how islands are used to create encrypted geographies which in turn create alternative political economies and communities and how, conversely, the imaginary of islands, enclaves and archipelagoes shapes how these alternative territories are conceptualized. We examine several attempts to create such start-up societies in the Caribbean and the Pacific to consider where, how, and why their proponents have taken to islands to establish these new encrypted geographies. The concept of interstitiality can help us understand why islands are privileged sites for the creation of encrypted geographies, and how these are used to transcend state borders yet simultaneously create digitally bordered interstitial spaces that undermine sovereign territories and currencies, empower cyber-kinetic elites, and exclude and marginalize existing island communities, natural ecosystems, and existing oceanic and archipelagic polities, cultures, and societies.