Asgardia - The Space Nation

Creating the Financial and Economic Systems of The First Space Nation

Asgardia has experienced an incredible journey since its creation in 2016. We have been embraced by people from across the world, growing to over 170k citizens and becoming the 174th largest nation by population. In December 2017, Asgardia launched its first satellite and in 2018 its institutions, including a parliament and government, will begin to take shape.

The challenge before us now is to ensure that Asgardia is ready for the next stage of its development. The key task is to establish an economic system that is suited to the space nation’s unique circumstances and is able to help meet the particular needs of Asgardians.

Asgardia’s Constitution sets forth the main directions for how Asgardia should evolve. Among these, it describes a sustainable and robust economy, rich in financial opportunities and incentives, as crucial to our long term success.

The Constitution’s guiding principles for this financial ecosystem are:

Non-interference in Earthly affairs or violation of Earth laws

Asgardian citizenship does not stand in conflict with any rules or obligations of Earthly citizenships

Only future businesses registered in Asgardia’s jurisdiction will be taxable – individual citizens are exempt from Asgardia taxation

It is within this framework that we now seek original, dynamic and visionary ideas to build Asgardia’s financial and economic systems.

The Competition

To achieve the goal of a strong, innovative economy able to support the future progress of Asgardia, we are launching a competition to identify both opportunities and solutions for the efficient development of our nation’s financial ecosystem.

The competition is open to any and all people to propose new ideas that will help build the financial and economic structures of Asgardia. Submissions may focus on new technologies, including information systems-based ones such as blockchain and cryptocurrency.

The competition winner(s) will receive a $10,000 USD prize and the chance to work with Asgardia to make their proposal a reality.

The Criteria

1 At this early stage in Asgardia’s evolution, we welcome any and all ideas that will promote and sustain economic growth. We especially encourage proposals that are based on or support:
Open source software
Decentralized systems
Fault-tolerant and secure architecture
Sustainability and environmental friendliness
Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology
2 Furthermore, ideal solutions are those that will address these three core aspects of a financial system (the third being beyond the scope of most present-day digital financial systems, such as cryptocurrencies):
Payment instrument for services and goods (payment functions)
Savings functions
Liquidity of the national currency (open-loop system)
3 Lastly, we are committed to a transparent financial ecosystem, but one that also takes all possible measures to safeguard sensitive financial data. This is where a balance between decentralized and centralized systems may prove useful.

The Assessement

We have assembled a stellar panel of judges from across the finance, economics, and digital technology fields to assess the competition entries and to determine the winner.

The judges will select an initial group of participants to progress to a second round. Those selected will be publicly presented on the Asgardia websites to generate feedback from the Asgardian community.

On April 21-22 2018, we will host a roundtable discussion where the selected proposals will be further debated, with the participants invited to attend. We will then announce the winner of the $10,000 USD prize.

Should the Asgardia Parliament also support the selected proposal, the winner(s) will be offered employment with Asgardia NGO to help implement their ideas.

How to Enter

We welcome applications from Asgardians and non-Asgardians alike, as individuals or in teams of up to five people. The applications themselves must present the proposal in a clear, straightforward way and can be submitted via any listed digital format (as attachment below 2MB in size and/or link to online resource, which may be password protected, along with access/login details): text document under 20,000 words (.pdf).

To make a submission, please send your application to competitions@asgardia.space

By sending an email to “competitions@asgardia.space” and submitting an entry into the Competition, you agree to be bound by the Competition Terms and Conditions:

Terms and Conditions

The closing date for submissions is March 27th 2018.