They call what they are building Puertopia. But then someone told them, apparently in all seriousness, that it translates to "Eternal Boy Playground" in Latin. So they are changing the name. They will call it Sol.
Dozens of entrepreneurs, made newly wealthy by blockchain and cryptocurrencies, are heading en masse to Puerto Rico this winter. They are selling their homes in California and establishing residency on the Caribbean island in hopes of avoiding, what they see as, onerous state and federal taxes on their growing fortunes, some of which reach into billions of dollars.
And these men, because they are almost exclusively men, have a plan for what to do with the wealth: they want to build a crypto-utopia, a new city where the money is virtual and the contracts are public, to show the rest of the world what a crypto-future could look like. Blockchain, a digital ledger that forms the basis of virtual currencies, has the potential to reinvent society and the Puertopians want to prove it.
For more than a year, the entrepreneurs searched for the best location. After Hurricane Maria decimated Puerto Rico's infrastructure in September and the price of cryptocurrencies began to soar, they saw an opportunity and felt a sense of urgency.
So this crypto-community flocked here to create its paradise. Now the investors spend their days hunting for property where they can have their own airports and docks. They are taking over hotels and a museum in the capital's historic section, called Old San Juan. They say they are close to getting the local government to allow them to have the first cryptocurrency bank.
"What's happened here is a perfect storm," said Halsey Minor, founder of the news site CNET, who is moving his new blockchain company called Videocoin from the Cayman Islands to Puerto Rico this winter. Referring to Hurricane Maria and the investment interest that has followed, he said, "While it was really bad for the people of Puerto Rico, in the long term it's a godsend if people look past that."
Puerto Rico offers an unparalleled tax incentive: no federal personal income taxes, no capital gains tax and favourable business taxes - all without having to renounce your US citizenship. For now, the local government seems receptive toward the crypto-utopians. The governor will speak at their blockchain summit conference, called Puerto Crypto, in March.
The newcomers are still debating the exact shape Puertopia should take. Some think they need to make a city; others think it's enough to move into Old San Juan. All Puertopians said, however, they hoped to move very fast.
"You've never seen an industry catalyse a place like you're going to see here," Minor said.
The Monastery
Until the Puertopians find land, they have descended on the Monastery, a 2000 square-metre hotel they rented as their base.
Matt Clemenson and Stephen Morris were drinking beer on the Monastery's roof one recent evening. Clemenson had an easygoing affect and wore two-tone aviators. Morris, a loquacious Brit, was in cargo shorts and lace-up steel-toed combat boots, with a smartphone on a necklace. They wanted to make two things clear: they chose Puerto Rico because of the hurricane, and they come in peace.
"It's only when everything's been swept away that you can make a case for rebuilding from the ground up," Morris, 53, said.
Clemenson, 34, a co-founder of Lottery.com, which is using the blockchain in lotteries, said: "We're benevolent capitalists, building a benevolent economy. Puerto Rico has been this hidden gem, this enchanted island that's been consistently overlooked and mistreated. Maybe 500 years later, we can make it right."
Other Puertopians arrived on the roof as a pack, just back from a full-day property-hunting bus tour. From the middle, Brock Pierce, 37, leader of the Puertopia movement, emerged wearing drop-crotch capri pants, a black vest that almost hit his knees and a large black felt hat. He and others arrived on the island in early December.
"Compassion, respect, financial transparency," Pierce said when asked what guided them here.
Pierce, director of the Bitcoin Foundation, is a major figure in the crypto-boom. He co-founded a blockchain-for-business startup, Block.One, which has sold about $200 million of a custom virtual currency, EOS, in an "initial coin offering." The value of all the outstanding EOS tokens is about $6.5 billion.
A former child actor, Pierce got into digital money early as a professional gamer, mining and trading gold in the video game World of Warcraft, an effort funded partly by Stephen Bannon, the former Donald Trump adviser. Pierce is a controversial figure - he has previously been sued for fraud.
Welcome, Puertopians?
All across San Juan, many locals are trying to figure out what to do with the crypto-arrivals.
Some are open to the new wave as a welcome infusion of investment and ideas.
"We're open for crypto-business," said Erika Medina-Vecchini, chief business development officer for the Department of Economic Development and Commerce. She said her office was starting an ad campaign aimed at the crypto-expat boom, with the tagline "Paradise Performs".
Others worry about the island being used for an experiment and talk about "crypto-colonialism". At a house party in San Juan, Richard Lopez, 32, who runs a pizza restaurant, Estella, in the town of Arecibo, said: "I think it's great. Lure them in with taxes, and they'll spend money."
Andria Satz, 33, who grew up in Old San Juan and works for the Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico, disagreed.
"We're the tax playground for the rich," she said. "We're the test case for anyone who wants to experiment. Outsiders get tax exemptions, and locals can't get permits."
Lopez said the territory needed something to jump-start the economy. "We have to find a new way," he said.
"Sure then, bitcoin, why not," Satz said, throwing up her hands.
Lopez said he and a childhood friend, Rafael Perez, 31, were trying to set up a bitcoin mine in their hometown. But electricity has been inconsistent, and mining even a single bitcoin takes a lot of power, he said.
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