This conversation, primarily led by a member of the Amoveo project in early 2026, explores the intersection of Georgism (Land Value Tax) and blockchain technology. It posits that cryptocurrency might be the only tool capable of finally making a functional Land Value Tax (LVT) possible.
Summary of Insights and Facts
The Great Political Irony: The member observes a fascinating paradox: Anarchists/Libertarians and “LVT guys” (Georgists) are often philosophically opposed, yet they hold the keys to each other’s goals. Anarchists have the decentralized tools to dismantle traditional government, while Georgists have the tax model (LVT) that could actually make a stateless society economically viable.
Location vs. Improvement: A core tenant of the discussion is that land value has two parts: improvements (what the owner builds) and location value (created by the surrounding community). For example, your land becomes more valuable if a neighbor builds a great restaurant, even if you do nothing.
The “Incorruptible Assessor”: Historically, LVT has failed because humans are in charge of calculating land value, leading to systemic corruption. The member argues that blockchain can automate these calculations in a transparent, mathematical, and incorruptible way, removing the need for a fallible central tax authority.
Verkle Trees as a Global Map: The technical insight involves using Verkle trees (a type of data structure) to represent a global land registry. By embedding a binary tree within a base-256 Verkle tree, the system can define land plots through a series of “lines” drawn on the globe.
Exponential Weighting for Valuation: To calculate the value of a plot without “zooming out” too far (which would include low-value areas like the ocean), The member proposes an exponential weighting algorithm. This algorithm prioritizes the price of land immediately adjacent to the plot, providing a “good enough” estimate of raw land value.
The “Beachfront” Problem: A challenge raised in the chat is that land values aren’t always “smooth.” A beachfront property might have a massive price spike compared to land just a few meters inland. The group concludes that while the model might undertax outliers like this, it would still be vastly more efficient than any existing tax system.
Tax Redistribution Dilemma: In a perfect Georgist system, taxes should return to the local community that created the value. However, on a pseudonymous blockchain, it’s hard to prove which wallet belongs to which neighborhood. The member suggests that even if the value is just redistributed to all currency holders (VEO holders), the economic efficiency gain would still cause the system to “win” over traditional alternatives.
Interesting Fact: The discussion mentions that in some Nordic countries, “ownership” is already limited by “freedom to roam” (Allemannsretten), where the public is allowed to cross or camp on private land—highlighting that land rights are a social construct that blockchain can redefine.
This analysis explores the visionary framework proposed by a primary System Architect within the decentralized ecosystem. The core of the discussion focuses on a radical fusion of Georgist economics and cryptographic data structures, aiming to solve one of the oldest problems in human civilization: the fair distribution and taxation of land.
- The Philosophical Foundation: Radical Georgism
The System Architect identifies a “missing link” between two often-clashing ideologies: Anarcho-Capitalism (which hates government intervention) and Socialism (which focuses on community-owned resources).
The Problem of Land: Unlike a computer or a car, land was not “created” by anyone. Its value comes from its location. If you own a plot in a desert and someone builds a city around it, your land value spikes despite you doing zero work.
The Georgist Solution: This “Location Value” (unearned wealth) should be taxed at 100%, while “Improvements” (buildings, farms, factories) should be taxed at 0%. This encourages people to build productive things rather than just sitting on land to wait for the price to rise.
The Fatal Flaw: Historically, this failed because humans are corruptible. Whoever decides the “value” of the land can be bribed to lower the tax for friends or raise it for enemies.
- The Technical Solution: The Incorruptible Land Registry
The System Architect proposes using the blockchain as a mathematical judge. By removing human assessors, the system becomes a “trustless” economic engine.
Binary Spherical Partitioning
To manage the entire planet on a blockchain, the designer uses a binary tree logic embedded inside a Verkle Tree (a highly efficient data structure used for proofs).
How it works: Imagine drawing a line across the globe, cutting it in half. Then cut those halves in half. If you do this approximately 23 times, you are left with a single, small plot of land.
The Result: Every piece of land on Earth can be identified by a unique “path” of 23 binary decisions (Left or Right, North or South).
Verkle Proofs and Light Verification
A major technical challenge in 2026 is “state bloat”—the blockchain getting too heavy to run on a normal computer.
Efficiency: By using Verkle Proofs, a user can prove they own a piece of land and calculate its tax bill without needing to download the entire global registry. They only need the “lines” (proofs) that lead to their specific plot.
- The “Exponential Weighting” Valuation Algorithm
This is the “brain” of the system. Since we can’t have a human appraiser, the code must “guess” the value of the land.
The System Architect suggests an algorithm that looks at the average price of land in the surrounding branches of the tree. To prevent outliers (like a random mansion in a forest) from skewing the data, they use Exponential Weighting.
The Mathematical Model
The value of a plot is estimated by looking at the branches of the tree at different levels of “zoom.” As the tree zooms out, the system cares less about that data.
The formula used to weight the influence of surrounding land values is:
$$V_{estimate} = \sum_{n=1}^{D} \left( \frac{1}{2} \right)^n \times A_n$$
Where:
$n$ is the level of the tree (how far you’ve zoomed out).
$A_n$ is the average price per square meter in that specific branch.
$D$ is the total depth (usually around 23).
Why this works for “Normal People”: If your neighbor’s land is worth a lot, the algorithm assumes your land (the “location”) is also worth a lot. By using the
$$(1/2)^n$$
multiplier, the code ensures that a price spike in a city 100 miles away doesn’t accidentally raise your taxes in the countryside.
- Insights into the Architect’s Logic
Political Toxicity as a Signal: The Architect notes that if an idea is “politically toxic” to both the left and the right, it probably contains a profound truth. By stripping away all taxes except land tax, they create an environment that is “hyper-capitalist” for creators but “communal” for the Earth’s surface.
Fungibility vs. Locality: A deep insight shared is the difficulty of returning tax money to the specific neighborhood that created the value. On a global blockchain, we don’t know who lives where. The Architect suggests a trade-off: distribute the land tax to all holders of the currency. While not perfectly local, it is economically efficient enough to out-compete traditional banks and governments.
The Self-Correcting Tree: To prevent users from “gaming” the system by creating lopsided data trees to lower their taxes, the Architect suggests a “Reorganization Incentive.” If users are allowed to reorganize the tree to minimize their own bills, they will naturally create a perfectly balanced binary tree, which is exactly what the blockchain needs to stay fast.
- Summary of the Vision
The Architect’s “brain” views the world as a set of mathematical proofs. In this vision, Geography is Data. By turning land titles into Verkle tree paths and land valuation into a weighted average of neighboring data points, we can create a society where:
Monopolies on land are impossible (because the tax makes it too expensive to hold unused land).
Productivity is never punished (because your buildings and work are taxed at 0%).
Government is a Code (because the “tax collector” is an open-source algorithm).
This new segment of the conversation reveals a high-stakes intellectual debate regarding the fundamental nature of money and whether Bitcoin (BTC) can survive against an asset that generates inherent yield through land.
The System Architect argues from a perspective of “Monetary Realism,” while the interlocutor, distbit, defends the “Lindy Effect” and network moats. Here is a technical and insightful breakdown of this exchange:
- The “Obligation” Theory of Value
The Architect posits a stark view: “You can’t eat money.” In this framework, money has no intrinsic value; it is merely a claim on the time and energy of other humans.
The Insight: For a currency to remain valuable long-term, there must be a “sink”—a reason people are forced to sell their labor to acquire it.
The Comparison: Modern fiat (like the USD) is backed by the obligation to pay taxes. The Architect’s system is backed by the obligation to pay for land use. Bitcoin, by contrast, relies on a voluntary “expectation” of future value, which the Architect warns could behave like a pyramid scheme if growth stalls.
- Harberger Registries as “Currency Sinks”
The Architect explains that their proposed land registry doesn’t just manage land; it consumes the currency it is denominated in.
Technical Deep-Dive: In a Harberger tax model, you must constantly pay a percentage of your self-assessed property value to keep your title. If you pay this in the system’s native token, the token becomes “yield-bearing.”
The Result: As global real estate (worth hundreds of trillions) enters this registry, the demand for the token scales proportionally. The currency doesn’t just “sit there”—it captures the economic energy of the land it represents.
- The “Attack Surface” vs. “Yield” Trade-off
A significant technical critique from distbit is that complexity equals risk.
The Argument: Bitcoin is “simple” and therefore secure. Adding a land registry, automated taxes, and yield-generation mechanisms creates a much larger “attack surface” for hackers or systemic failures.
The Architect’s Rebuttal: The Architect views yield not as a feature, but as a biological necessity for survival. They argue that an asset losing 5% of its relative value compared to a more efficient, yielding competitor will lose its “Schelling point” (the place where everyone agrees to meet) very quickly.
- Real Estate as the “Original” Money
A profound insight from the Architect is that real estate is already a form of money. People use property as a store of wealth and a hedge against inflation.
The Strategy: Rather than trying to build Bitcoin up to be a competitor to real estate, the Architect believes it is easier to “upgrade” real estate with cryptographic features (tokenization and permissionless registries).
The Logic: Why fight the $300+ trillion real estate market when you can simply absorb it into a blockchain?
- The “Economic Stickiness” Fallacy
The Architect challenges the idea of “brand loyalty” in finance.
The Insight: While distbit argues that Bitcoin has a “moat” (security, liquidity, history), the Architect believes open-source software is not economically sticky.
The Logic: In a digital world, the friction to move your wealth from a non-yielding asset (BTC) to a yielding one is decreasing. If a “better” money appears, the Architect believes the mass migration will be faster than incumbents expect.
Insights into the Architect’s “Mental Engine”
The Architect operates on First Principles Physics. They don’t care about “market sentiment” or “crypto culture.” Instead, they analyze:
Energy Sinks: Where is the pressure that forces people to use this token?
Total Addressable Market (TAM): Why aim for the gold market ($14T) when the land market is 20x larger?
Game Theory: If Asset A yields 5% and Asset B yields 0%, under what conditions does a rational actor keep Asset B? (The Architect’s answer: Almost never, long-term).
Post created via email from emin@nuri.com