-
@ Runy Calmera
2025-06-10 17:38:45Are Islands Choosing for Wealth Or Poverty in the 21st Century?
You have 57 official islands according to the United Nations. But there are thousands of islands in the world. What does Bitcoin and Lighting mean for them? Can it help them escape poverty and become wealthy?
Wealth
First of all: Wealth: what does it mean to be wealthy as an island? It is not only about the number of fiat currency you have in your pockets. Not about the digits you have on your bank account. And not only about the number of sats or Bitcoins you have in your self custodian wallet.\ Wealth means:
-
You are healthy
-
Your mind is free
-
Your body is in shape
-
Your relationships are bringing you join
-
You are using your talents and your gifts to the max
-
And you have options, you can do what you want with your time.
Healthy Islands
So for an island, let's take Curacao as an example, of 160.000 people, it means that there is a potential for everybody to reach that status, that next level in their lives called #wealth.
That is the "dream" goal I'm chasing with my Island Wealth show. Away from poverty. Into more possibilities. Using your skills in this dynamic world.\ \ Current state of Island Wealth
If we take the Caribbean as an example, here you see the official list of islands in the Caribbean: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Caribbean_islands>
There are some indicators to check how wealthy - in terms of income - these Caribbean islands are.\ \ GDP per Capita: this is the total income of the island per year divided by the population. You will get an average that you can compare with your own country. If you take this globally, Luxembourg is the wealthiest country in the world.\ \ Gini Coefficient: this gives you a curve and a value that shows you how the distribution of wealth is on an island.
Net worth: If you go on an individual level, a family level, a business level you can take the assets minus the liabilities and calculate the difference as Net worth. You can also take this figure and compare it to the net worth of individuals in the world.
Bitcoin
Now lets introduce Bitcoin for these islands. How can #Bitcoin help these islands become wealthier?\ \ Problems of Islands
One of the most important problems the islands have is that they are very dependent on #tourism. Yes, I have been studying the economies of islands for a long time. I've been advising small island's governments in the Caribbean, private investors, high earning professionals on how they can build their wealth. And I always hear: we need to diversify more. What does that mean?\ \ All their sales and revenues are coming from one single sector: tourism. And they don't like that. Imagine an island: 500.000 tourists per year coming from USA and Canada. And every day cruise ships at their mega cruise piers with a total of 1 million cruise tourists per year. The tourists stay for 7 days and the cruise tourists stay for 1 day.\ \ That is the typical Caribbean island at its peak. If anything happens to that flow of cruise and stayover tourists ->Poverty. If there is a hurricane ->Poverty. If there are no flights -> Poverty. If there is political unrest and the tourists cannot come ->Poverty. So wealth is very concentrated when you are living on an island.\ \ Bitcoin and Lightning
While most Island's policy makers, citizens, even sometimes high paid individuals do not see Bitcoin, I see a 2 trillion decentralized global economy. If you are fully dependent on tourism, and you want to diversify away from tourism, lets consider Bitcoin and Lightning.\ \ Small businesses
Lets imagine your small businesses that operate online, like a consultant, online trainer/coach, or anybody selling snacks. Now working in the informal sector and not paying any taxes to your small island's government. They all can instantly:
-
Download a #Blink or #Aqua wallet and start receiving #SATS
-
Get a Wordpress or Shopify website, and start receiving SATS from all over the world, instantly.
Think about that for a moment and let it sink in. A two trillion USD economy globally. 21 million Bitcoins max ever. And everybody can participate right now. Without having to install servers, host software. I would seriously consider this new decentralize payment and savings technology.
How can you diversify away from tourism with Bitcoin and Lighting?
Any business can accept Bitcoin. Imagine you do not have a bank account and you are working in the informal sector. As a gardener, as a technician, electrician. A pool boy, a musician. You now have a wallet to accept hard money instantly.\ \ Agriculture
You could be paying for seeds to plan. With your lightning wallet online.\ \ Retail
You could be accepting Lighting payments if you are a store that sells glasses, food, snacks, clothing, hand crafted products, paintings.
Construction
You could be importing material from the #BRICS+ nations, China as first one, Brazil (close to the Caribbean) and paying with lightning.\ \ Financial Services (local and international)
You could be helping foreign and local other businesses with their online books, they annual reports, their administration, helping them relocate to the Caribbean, and receiving payments with Lighting.\ \ I can go on and on\ \ Decentralized Peer to Peer software development\ I have written about this on previous posts. You could be building peer to peer software based on new software stacks like pear runtime, holepunch technology, nostr. So if you are a local software developer and you know javascript, html and css you now can be paid with Lighting and deliver your knowledge and services to the world. I'm also exploring this myself.\ \ AI and Data Science\ If you are a Data Scientist and you know how to automate stuff with #Python, you know how to use #AI, like me, you could be creating online software and experiences to create Digital Assets that work 24*7*365 days: https://bit.ly/python-ai-automation.
There are endless possibilities to tap into this global decentralized economy
And guess what: we are so early. There is less than 1% of the people of the world who has used Bitcoin and Lighting.\ \ Let's go islands\ So lets do it. Lets go islands. You see that diamond above? It just to start your imagination. You see that man with the open mouth above?That is just to show you how amazed and surprised I'm with the potential of decentralization, self custody and the potential to be self sovereign.\ \ Let me know your thoughts\ This article is only on Nostr and Keet and decentralized platform. I'm moving my attention more and more to decentralization. So I want to hear your thoughts. Let me know if you have any comments, questions or ideas how to create more wealth.\ \ And stay tuned to my episodes where I will host the Island Wealth Show #IslandWealth.\ \ Runy\ Host Island Wealth
-