The purchase of a big tract of land in the Nevada desert near Reno attracted a lot of questions. Especially since the purchasing company, Blockchains LLC, had no previous history.
According to the New York Times, the plot of desert is the starting point for what crypto millionaire Jeffrey Berns hopes will be a thriving community underpinned by blockchain technology.
Berns thinks blockchain can be used by ‘normal’ people, and those in his planned futuristic community, to control their own data and information in a digital economy.
A Master Plan In The Works
Berns envisions a sprawling setup with schools, houses, and commercial districts where every resident will have an Ethereum address to be used for personal data storage and for voting purposes, all within a structure he calls a “distributed collaborative entity.”
He also plans to build vaults into nearby mountains so people can store their private keys with a custom-built system that would keep them across multiple digital devices.
Berns mused that if:
we can get enough people to trust the blockchain, we can begin to change all the systems we operate by.
A lawyer by trade focused on class-action lawsuits, Berns was lured by Ethereum because of its storage capabilities. He became wealthy after selling a big stash of Ether at the right time last year.
Now his company, Blockchains LLC, has a repurposed office building and a staff working on a master plan for the community to receive approval by county officials.
He told the New York Times that actual construction on the land would not start until the end of 2019 at the earliest.
Support From Local Officials Is Present
With his grandiose vision, Berns has been able to woo over local officials who are interested in stimulating economic development in the area.
His land holding is right next to Tesla’s Gigafactory and other properties belonging to Google, Apple, and Switch.
In the last week, Berns signed a memorandum of understanding with NV Energy to collaborate on running energy transactions with blockchain.
According to Berns , the overall project:
will either be the biggest thing ever, or the most spectacular crash and burn in the history of mankind.
