Tim Stern

Tim Stern is the founder of CryptoCity, a community development on Isla Margarita, Venezuela, that combines technology, entrepreneurship and a shared set of values. First planned as a 13-hectare site of 100 plots, the project has grown to roughly 35 hectares with close to 300 plots, and selects its residents for their fit with an ethos of innovation and collaboration.

He argues that leaving an increasingly constrained Europe is a rational choice rather than a fantasy, and is building CryptoCity as a high-trust community funded through DAO-based shared investment. He has appeared on the Free Cities Podcast and writes about the future of community living.

The project is organised as a DAO, with each plot carrying a token that functions as a vote, so decisions about the site are taken by the people who own part of it rather than by the developer alone.

Stern has lived in Venezuela since 2021, and Isla Margarita is a deliberate choice: an island with duty-free status, cheap land and a government with little interest in what a hundred foreigners do among themselves. Construction has run in phases, with infrastructure before houses.