Dwarf Pacific island nation the Republic of Vanuatu, with which at Russia the visa-free regime, became the first country in the world allowed to sell their citizenship to foreigners for the cryptocurrency.
The owner of a Vanuatu passport, which allows visa-free visit of 113 countries, including EU countries and the UK can be over 200 thousand dollars, or about 42 BTC.
As stated by the head of the National information centre (VIC) Geoffrey bond, whose competence includes consideration of questions on granting citizenship, other countries previously “attempted to organize the procedure of payment for citizenship by bitcoins, but they were not approved by the authorities and the result has been a failure”.
“The government of Vanuatu unequivocally expressed the desire to be a leader in the use of new technologies and has approved the acceptance of bitcoins in the design of citizenship,” said bond, noting that the government will take all necessary inspections of these operations through the Australian cryptocurrency exchange that offers guarantees to the Australian securities for compliance with financial rights, according to business magazine Fortune.
Vanuatu is a small Pacific island nation in Melanesia, located on the 83 Islands of the archipelago of the New Hebrides. In the West it borders with Vanuatu economic zone of Australia, on the East by the territorial waters of Fiji. The total area of the Islands of Vanuatu is about 12.2 thousand sq. km. According to a recent mini-census, the population of the Republic of Vanuatu is around 273 thousand.
Vanuatu is a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations, an intergovernmental organization, which includes 52 countries, most of which are former British colonies.
Recall that in addition to Vanuatu citizenship in exchange for investment offers to Dominica, where it costs about 100 thousand dollars. The Dominican Republic will ask for the citizenship also 100 thousand dollars. For the same amount you can become a citizen of Grenada. On St. Kitts and Nevis citizenship can be bought for 250 thousand dollars. Antigua and Barbuda sells the right to citizenship for 400 thousand dollars. 500 thousand euros represents the citizenship of Montenegro. Malta gives you the right to obtain citizenship for 650 thousand Euro.
In Russia in 2017, also offered to give citizenship to foreigners for real estate investments from 50 million rubles.