Island Country of Dominica Issues Bitcoins Nationally

Holy shit.

The PanAm Post reports:

70,000 Island Residents Get a “Bitcoin Drop” March 2015

For the first time in history, a country will officially adopt bitcoin as its currency:Dominica, an island republic in the middle of the Caribbean. An event to mark the occasion will be held in March 2015, thanks to an agreement between local authorities and representatives of Coinapult, Aspen Assurance, Bitcoin Beauties, and the College Cryptocurrency Network (CCN).

The initiative, known as “Let the Bit Drop,” will send a small of amount of bitcoin to every island resident via text message. This effort will turn Dominica, and its more than 70,000 residents, into the most densely concentrated bitcoin community in the world.

“The objective is simply to increase bitcoin adoption. We are going to create tens of thousands of new bitcoin users overnight. Of course, we hope that these people enjoy and continue to use bitcoin, and that the project provides proof of concept to similar communities all around the world. We want a thousand Bit Drops,” said Ira Miller, CEO of Coinapult, in an exclusive interview with the PanAm Post.

This is going to be interesting.

It’s reported that the tiny nation has a fairly high level of government corruption, along with a 23% unemployment rate.  Dominica has GDP of around $500 million, English is universally spoken and they make most of their money through tourism and agriculture.  It’s reported that businesses looking to move to Dominica can obtain a tax free status for relocating.  Dominca is also one of the few countries recommended by Jeff Berwick’s The Dollar Vigilante passport program for dual citizenship.  Jeff Berwick runs the libertarian themed video podcast Anarchast website and the The Dollar Vigilante website. I highly recommend checking out his work, he’s a great guy.

The official currency of Dominica is the East Caribbean Dollar, which reportedly has a relatively modest 2.1% annual inflation rate. Five of the states using the EC$ are independent states: Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis,Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The other two are British overseas territories: Anguilla and Montserrat.

This is very exciting news.  I hope they are able to pull off this currency issuance without big problems arising.