Looking to move to the Caribbean? Want to live there forever but don’t know how you will get permanent residence? There’s no cause to worry. Now you can buy citizenship there, and, thanks to a new ruling in Antigua and Barbuda, you can do so with Bitcoin. And you will only need about 12 BTC at present to get crypto citizenship through the islands’ Citizenship by Investment Program.
The parliament of Antigua and Barbuda has amended the country’s Citizenship by Investment Programme Act to accept payments in the form of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. With Antigua and Barbuda’s citizenship by way of investment into its National Development Fund having been reduced to a cost of $100,000 USD last year, the price of citizenship in the independent Commonwealth country is less than 12 BTC at current prices.
That’s also about what the program requires as a once-off contribution to the country’s National Development Fund. You can, of course, pay that in cash or another crypto coin. And you can also make a sizeable business investment of anything between $400 000 and $1.5million, if you would rather keep your Bitcoin. You may well want to, if there’s any truth in the predictions of some crypto experts that Bitcoin could be worth between $20,000 and $50 000 by the end of the year.
Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne said the cryptocurrencies received will be converted into USD on daily basis to avoid losses from its volatility, reports said. Browne was quoted as saying in the Parliament.
“And the truth is too, it expands your market because we have a number of cryptocurrency investors who may be quite willing to take up our citizenship but would only pay in cryptocurrencies, If you do not accept the cryptocurrency then you would be literally locked out of that market,”
Antigua and Barbuda is the second island state to accept crypto citizenship. Last year, the Pacific island, Vanuatu, became the first to accept virtual money. In this case it was for honorary citizenship, and the amount of bitcoins wanted for that title was considerably greater, even if the current difference in Bitcoin pricing is taken into account.
Vanuatu wanted the equivalent of $280,000 or 58 Bitcoin back when it made its decision. That was just less than a year ago, and at that stage Bitcoin had a price of just under $5,000.