Tim Stern

Tim Stern is the founder of CryptoCity, a community development on Isla de Margarita, Venezuela, that combines technology, entrepreneurship and a shared set of values. First planned as a 12.8-hectare site of 100 plots, the project has grown to around 40 hectares with some 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 enough distance from Caracas to be left alone. The removal of Nicolás Maduro in January 2026 reopened the country to foreign investment, and the project now builds in conditions nobody planned for. Construction has run in phases, with infrastructure before houses.