Estonia Wants To Be A Borderless, Crypto-Driven Tax Haven
Estonia Wants To Be A Borderless, Crypto-Driven Tax Haven
Another week goes by and another nation joins the fray of countries already adopting cryptocurrency, bitcoin and the principles that underpin the space. This time, Estonia is in spotlight. It was only April last year when Estonia was labeled as one of the countries that was most against bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and the Estonian government reveals that it’s considering launching its own cryptocurrency, reportedly set to be called Estcoin. The true purpose of such a coin was the subject of considerable speculation during the week subsequent to this announcement, but now things have become a little clearer.
This week, reports have hit press that the Estonian government is looking to set up a sovereign wealth fund, which it can use to complement its existing (and unique to the European Union (EU)) concept of e-residency.
For those not familiar with e-residency it’s essentially a borderless society through which the Estonian government issues residency to anyone in the world and through which non-Estonians can gain access to Estonian services such as company formation, banking, payment processing, and taxation.
The plan, as it would seem, is to launch Estcoin by way of an ICO and then have the coin function as a DAO type fund, meaning Estcoin holders would decide where and to whom Estcoin would go – almost like a startup incubator type model in the digital space.
The government would also exchange Estcoin for bitcoin and hold this bitcoin as the foundation of the above mentioned sovereign wealth fund. Essentially, then, what we’ve got, if this all plays out as reported, is a borderless online state within which anybody can set up a business and operate under local taxation law, as well as attract funding in the form of Estcoin, at the discretion of the holders of the latter.
We get the feeling this is just the beginning of a wave of this sort of border eradication move.
