Create a Business for a New Libertarian Floating City…

…and win fabulous prizes! The Seasteading Institute is offering $5,000 for the best business idea to actuate on a stateless floating city on the high seas. The details:

We believe there are vast profit opportunities to be harnessed by businesses that choose to locate aboard commercial real estate on the water. For the purposes of this contest, entrants will assume their businesses will exist on a platform 25 miles off the coast of a large first-world city, such as Miami or Shanghai. Furthermore, entrants will assume that the legal and regulatory environment aboard a seastead is tailored toward the efficient functioning and operation of their particular business.

With this contest we intend to probe the legal and physical costs and benefits afforded to businesses aboard seasteads; especially regulatory and legal comparative advantages that cannot be easily reproduced on land. The business plans developed for this contest will serve as a compendium of ideas and research from which individuals and firms can draw inspiration for future commercial seastead businesses. Moreover, contestants will become part of a growing network of resourceful individuals interested in collaborating on seasteading ventures. 

Out of the initial contestants, TSI will choose a small number of semi-finalists for review by our panel of judges. Winners' business plans will get significant exposure to investors interested in seasteading businesses.

Keep your mind on things desired, peaceful, yet pointlessly stymied by land-based authorities.

I've been on top of the unfolding Seasteading saga for Reason for awhile, with a July 2009 magazine feature on the idea and its history, and first-person reporting from their first two "Ephemerisle" festivals, 2009 and 2010.