Saint Kitts and Nevis, the smallest sovereign nation in the Western hemisphere, has become the unlikely target of a crypto-millionaire whose designs on the island could reverberate throughout the Caribbean and beyond. Olivier Janssens, who holds Saint Kitts and Nevis citizenship by investment, is the head of ‘Destiny’, a newly proposed special economic zone on the island of Nevis. The project was officially unveiled in a sleek promotional video released in October 2025; a subsequent press release called it ‘a Dubai–Monaco hybrid for the Americas’.

Despite its slick marketing, for many Nevisians the Destiny project reeks of a new form of colonialism, a practice that has long coloured Saint Kitts and Nevis’ history. Christopher Columbus reached the area in 1493, making it one of the first parts of the Americas exposed to Europeans. For the next five centuries, the islands were a site of colonial competition between the British, French and Spanish until Britain consolidated its control following the 1783 Treaty of Paris. The Europeans massacred the native Kalinago people and imported African slaves to create an economy based around sugar production. While slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1834, Saint Kitts and Nevis remained under British jurisdiction until it gained independence in 1983. Since then, the economy has developed around tourism and a Citizenship by Investment (CBI) programme which was established in 1984; this has become one of the government’s primary revenue sources.

Rumours abound in Nevis that ‘Destiny’ is a new incarnation of a previous venture known as ‘Free Society’, which was less subtle about its ambitions. That entity first emerged nearly a decade ago as a project led by Janssens and fellow early Bitcoin adopter Roger Ver, also known as ‘Bitcoin Jesus’. Last year Ver gained notoriety for settling a $50m tax case with the US Department of Justice, regarding his failure to disclose his Bitcoin holdings when he renounced his American citizenship and became a citizen of Saint Kitts and Nevis in 2014. The deal was notable for the involvement of individuals personally connected to Donald Trump whose intervention allowed Ver to avoid prison time.

Back in 2017, Ver took the stage at the Nexus Conference to announce the Free Society project, which he said involved ‘purchasing sovereign land from a government to create the world’s first libertarian country’. That same statement was posted on the Free Society website, which went live shortly after the presentation. Ver said that he and Janssens had been working on the project ‘for a while’, and that Janssens himself, a ‘lifelong libertarian’, had been doing so for the past decade. In an interview with Bitcoin Magazine, Ver further laid out his vision for the fledgling project: ‘There will not be a government. It will all be private institutions and private organisations’. Despite denying involvement or prior knowledge of Destiny, Ver recently sold land in Nevis, which he purchased in October 2021, to Destiny’s developers, at which point he was still listed as ‘co-founder’ on Free Society’s website. Curiously, attempting to access the URL now only yields a blank white page.

A libertarian paradise

No official link has been made between the two entities before. However according to a document dated 16 June 2025 obtained from the Isle of Man company registry, Free Society Limited is listed as a secretary for Destiny International Limited, a company of which Jannssens is listed as a director. Another document dated 18 June 2025 lists Janssens as the sole shareholder of Free Society Limited. That paper also notes that the directors of Free Society Limited wanted to ‘amend the Principal trade or business of the Company to be a more accurate description’. It says that Free Society’s ‘sole purpose is to research decentralised governance models for free private cities for its shareholder’: Janssens. The document also says that Free Society ‘has engaged some consultants (engineers, architects) for the first potential deployment of a free private city for its shareholder(s)’. Neither Janssens nor Destiny responded when contacted for comment on this connection.

Janssens has not been shy about wanting to build a libertarian paradise. Free Society’s website explained that it ‘plan[s] to establish a rule of law based on libertarian principles and free markets’, with legal enforcement through ‘private arbitration, competing court systems and private law enforcement’. That intent has carried over to Destiny: last year, Janssens voiced criticism of Saint Kitts and Nevis’ court system, calling it inefficient and saying that if Destiny were to adopt it, people would be uninterested in coming to live there. Instead, Janssens has said Destiny would prefer to have its own court system. Saint Kitts and Nevis’ Special Sustainability Zone (SSZ) Authorisation Act, which was passed on 21 August 2025, specifically mentions that any developer ‘shall present plans to develop the necessary infrastructure, utilities and facilities within the Special Sustainability Zone’ including how to ‘provide public safety and security services’ and ‘dispute resolution services and mechanisms’. While the SSZ Act ensures that any SSZ is subject to the ultimate authority of Saint Kitts and Nevis’ legal system, it is clear that the Destiny developers are hoping to introduce their own alternative in order to attract investment from like-minded libertarians.

Local opposition leaders have noted that the SSZ Act was rushed through the national assembly at an unusual time, and expressed concern that the Destiny developers may have had a role in crafting the bill. Kelvin Daly, a member of the Nevis Reformation Party, told us that opponents of Destiny are ‘fully convinced that that the [SSZ bill] was authored by [the Destiny developers]’, because ‘no legislature would have ever created a bill like that, so lopsided in favour of the developer and to the harm of the residents and citizens of Saint Kitts and Nevis’, adding that the legislation only makes sense if the developers are interested in ‘their own governance’.

He specifically expressed concern about Professor Tom W. Bell as a ‘one of the architects’ of the bill. Bell, author of the 2017 book Your Next Government?: From the Nation State to Stateless Nations, is listed as legal advisor for both Free Society and Destiny, and was involved in crafting legislation for the Catawba Digital Economic Zone in the US. Bell also helped develop Ulex, described as ‘an open-source legal system’ intended to ‘offer a neutral and international alternative to the legal systems of particular nation states’.

On 30 December 2023, Bell published an article in the Journal of Special Jurisdictions, where he suggests that special jurisdictions ‘offer a platform for conducting limited, controlled, and ethical experiments in government’, referring to them as ‘laboratories of governance’. In the paper, Bell explicitly mentions Free Society as an ongoing project, writing that ‘Free Society gives every evidence of planning an experiment not just in economic rules or the common law but in the totality of government, from top to bottom’. In an episode of the Freedom Cities Podcast on 5 August 2025, Bell said that his main client was Free Society Limited which he says has ‘a big project which is just about to launch’, and that ‘we’ve been meeting with top government officials’. Bell described this unnamed project as the ‘first free private decentralised city’.

‘Governments love money’

Ver and Janssens were very clear about what type of country they were after in the original iteration of Free Society, whose website openly listed the criteria as follows:

Proximity to existing economic powerhouses (US, Europe, Asia) Accessibility by water Located in a safe, conflict-free area Stable existing government Nations with a significant national debt A flexible constitution that allows granting sovereignty Acceptable minimum size for the land

The idea that target nations should have ‘a significant national debt’ is particularly alarming, indicating that the goal was to find a country that would be unable to refuse a lucrative financial offer. As Ver himself said in his earlier Free Society presentation, ‘governments love money’. Several locals told us that they believe that the Saint Kitts and Nevis’ authorities’ warm reception to Destiny is directly connected to a decrease in revenue from its CBI programme. The IMF is projecting rising fiscal deficits for the country due to that decline, and residents fear that the government is attempting to create two classes of citizens to compensate. Premier Mark Brantley told concerned citizens that individuals who gain economic citizenship through Destiny would not have the right to vote or buy land outside the SSZ. However, Saint Kitts and Nevis’ constitution has no provisions that would allow such tiered citizenship. Additionally, there have been concerns that should Nevis back out of the project, the island will be saddled with even more debt, requiring an IMF intervention and debt restructuring. The worry is that, either way, Saint Kitts and Nevis will be losing its sovereignty.

A new form of domination

Destiny’s investors are selling visions of prosperity to Nevisians. A pop-up ad that appears when accessing Saint Kitts and Nevis news media online touts Destiny as a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’ and a ‘transformative initiative’. Yet locals have expressed reservations about the tactics being employed by the Destiny developers to acquire land, and several civil society groups have criticised the project. There is also a clear conflict of interest at play: Sharon Brantley, wife of Premier Mark Brantley, is the estate agent in charge of acquiring land for Destiny, even offering swaps to landowners in south Nevis to meet the project’s needs. One local landowner named Livi Williams told us he was first contacted around two years ago by Sharon Brantley, who asked if he was interested in selling, but provided no details as to why the land was being sought for purchase. She later invited him to join a conference call with other Destiny investors and set up a meeting with Graeme Brooks, Destiny’s project lead, who has also served as Free Society’s operations executive. Despite repeatedly expressing his disinterest, Williams continued to receive constant phone calls asking him what it would take for him to sell the land. Multiple individuals we have spoken to, including Williams, have described these methods as harassment.

Destiny is part of a broader movement of libertarians attempting to create their own private states around the world. Kelvin Daly told us, ‘For [Janssens] to believe that he can simply walk into a black country and take over with 15,000 settlers tells me all I need to know about the man himself. These are not persons who are looking to integrate into society. These are people looking to dominate and take over our country’. Janssens, Daly said, has been ‘parading himself as a Nevisian’ despite having ‘just come off the boat’. In fact, the Belgian native who lives in Monaco has barely even spent time ashore promoting Destiny, instead choosing to attend town hall events virtually via video call.

Echoes of the Caribbean’s long and painful history of imperialism are hard to ignore. Janssens and the Destiny developers appear to be the latest in a long line of out-of-touch Westerners looking to profit off the Caribbean’s riches, preying on the fact that local voices who oppose the project have been largely dismissed. The lack of transparency, especially surrounding the connections between the project and Free Society, rightly raises suspicion among the island’s residents. Should Destiny succeed, a dangerous precedent will be set whereby the world’s ultra-wealthy can simply purchase their own sovereignty, create their own enclaves, and live by their own rules — all at the expense of ordinary people.