The small Caribbean island nation of Saint Kitts and Nevis has been making headlines. At the center of the attention is “Destiny,” an effort spearheaded by Belgian cryptocurrency millionaire Olivier Janssens to create a special economic zone on the island of Nevis.
Destiny’s developers are making big promises about the potential of the project. Their website touts Destiny as the “World’s First Special Sustainability Zone” and the “Monaco-Dubai of the Caribbean.” As an experiment in “revolutionary eco-luxury living,” it promises to “substantially increase the GDP of Saint Kitts and Nevis and the entire Eastern Caribbean” as well as create “thousands of jobs.” Additional benefits advertised are a 5 percent profit share “paid out to [Nevisians] directly and through technology we will create early next year,” a 10 percent profit share for the Nevisian government, a 10 percent profit share into a sovereign wealth fund that will “support Nevisians in many ways,” a $50-million investment into Nevisian infrastructure, and a $1-million yearly scholarship for Nevisians.
There have been scant few details about how exactly these pledges will be fulfilled. Nevertheless, the project developers are attempting to showcase that their venture has local support, with a new section of Destiny’s website displaying videos of locals sharing their enthusiasm.
Although the project was announced last year, only more recently have major international news outlets like The New York Times begun to take notice. Yet what most of this coverage has largely ignored is arguably one of the most important aspects of the unfolding developments.
Many of these pieces mention Free Society, which is a previous endeavor Janssens and fellow crypto entrepreneur Roger Ver, also known as “Bitcoin Jesus,” announced in 2017 to purchase “sovereign land from a government to create the world’s first libertarian country.” But none of the reporting has drawn a formal connection between that this libertarian enterprise and the Destiny economic zone on St. Kitts and Nevis. The Times even suggested that Free Society “apparently ran aground.”
But evidence suggests that Free Society has not, in fact, died out. Destiny is simply the final result of its plans coming to fruition—with slightly subtler branding.
Papers found in the Isle of Man Company registry legally tie Free Society, which still exists, with Destiny. A publicly available document dated June 16, 2025 lists Free Society Limited as a secretary/joint secretary for Destiny International Limited. If there were any questions about whether that company was the same as the Nevisian venture, Janssens is listed as the Director of Destiny International. The two entities even share the same address.
The connection does not appear to be a coincidence. Another document dated June 18, 2025 lists Janssens as the “100% shareholder” of Free Society. That document amended the “principal trade or business” of Free Society from a “legal practice” to an entity whose “sole purpose is to research decentralised governance models for free private cities for its shareholder.” If that “sole purpose” sounds familiar, that’s because it’s essentially the same vision that Janssens and Ver were pushing with Free Society back in 2017.
Another section of the same document says that Free Society “has engaged some consultants (engineers, architects) for the first potential deployment of a free private city for its shareholder(s).” Destiny has been very public about having contracted a variety of architecture and engineering firms, including Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, which designed the One World Trade Center in New York City. Other familiar characters have been involved in both projects in addition to Janssens, including Chief Financial Officer Steven Craven and legal advisor Tom W. Bell, who even mentioned in an August 2025 podcast episode that his client, Free Society, had an upcoming announcement regarding the launch of a “big project.” Destiny was unveiled one month later.
The key matter here is one of transparency, which is the most basic thing the people of Nevis deserve if they are expected to accept the creation of a libertarian enclave on their own land. The Destiny website claims that the developers will not be creating a separate country, and yet, Free Society’s intent was to do just that. Destiny is promising Nevisians appealing benefits, like offering $100 to every inhabitant of the island, including children.
But those promises are contingent on the project being approved, and they effectively serve as inducements to overlook its problematic nature. These ventures also raise broader, harder questions about the future of sovereignty itself in the age of digital nomadism and new ways of building economies, as well as the power of the elite to buy their own countries.