Alpha City Inc.

This is exactly why we must reinvent the concept of the state entirely and eliminate politics and politicians Also why we believe the corporate model is a better model to form the basis of new experiments, and the CEO is the right primary leadership role to focus on, not the president, prime minister, etc

4. What remains today is an urban-decay landscape: monumental neoclassical buildings hollowed out and overgrown, silent civic halls, intact street grids with almost no traffic, and a harbor now serving local fishing boats. Yet beneath the decay is a rare physical asset: a complete island-scale city skeleton with port access, walkable density, and total geographic containment in a tropical climate in the Bissagos Islands. Bolama’s ruins outline a latent city rather than a failed settlement.

1. The lost secret city of Bolama—built to rule an empire, then quietly abandoned. Bolama lies just off the southern coast of Guinea-Bissau, a fully planned island capital that once served as the seat of Portuguese Guinea from 1879 to 1941.

5. Today, communities still live primarily from fishing, rice cultivation, and inter-island trade, with sparse infrastructure. Modern development and tourism remain extremely limited. That isolation has preserved both ecological integrity and cultural continuity.

1. Hidden for centuries by the tides, mangroves, and shallow seas, the Bissagos are one of the world’s last true secret archipelagos. The Bissagos Archipelago is a chain of ~88 low-lying islands, with only ~20 permanently inhabited, off the coast of Guinea-Bissau.

São Tomé & Príncipe is one of the most beautiful places in the world, but it is also one of the five smallest economies in the world. Income levels are very low, placing the country in the bottom 15%. Official estimates indicate 55-67% of the population lives in poverty, and ~10-15% live in extreme poverty, though conditions on the ground often appear far worse due to widespread informal employment, subsistence living, and high import-driven costs. The result is a country that statistically ranks among the poorer nations globally and feels extremely poor in everyday life for the majority of the population. Fortunately, the country’s population is also one of the world’s smallest. At ~240,000 people, the country is comparable to a small city, so it is possible to rapidly create enough jobs to completely eradicate poverty nationwide. We aim to achieve this very quickly.

A lot goes into building a city from nothing. You have to think about infrastructure, the industries that actually make sense in a particular location, and all the different economic layers of the local community. We are big believers that you need a full economic ladder with upward mobility. You have to solve for the poorest to the richest and create a place where everybody can win and thrive. That requires thinking about all the different industries, what the career paths look like, what education and healthcare look like, and what critical infrastructure to get in and out of the country looks like, including airports and ports. There is a vast number of different things you have to really understand and know about to build a city from nothing. That is part of what makes it interesting. It is a big systems problem. You have to hold a lot of things in your head at the same time and make them work together.

Bradford Cross @bradfordcross is Founder and CEO of @AlphaCityInc - a longtime AI entrepreneur now building the governance layer The lib/acc Summit is one of the few places you’ll hear from people designing new jurisdictions like products: under real constraints, with real tradeoffs.

Patri Friedman @patrissimo founded the Seasteading Institute and is now GP at @PronomosVC the first VC for building new charter cities and jurisdictions Continuing a legacy, grandson of Milton Friedman, he’s spent over a decade with real governance projects like Próspera itself!

During my 25 years working on new governance models, the main bottleneck has been finding the incredible founders we need to build something as epic as a charter city. The space is ripe & ready for new companies, and we're assembling an amazing collection of OGs to advise a fascinating collection of new founders at this @Prosperahn event. If you're serious about exploring a concept in the space, please apply! And feel free to DM me to highlight anything about your app: luma.com/founders_acc20…

Alpha City: a federation of cities where anyone with drive can thrive I often have a hard time answering the question “can you name a few benchmarks in @tftcxyz ' space?”. I can surely think about projects that do develop relevant products in our space, such as: ▶️ Single SEZs, like @CiudadMorazan & @Prosperahn in Honduras, Itana in Nigeria and @ThisIsSIC in Sierra Leone; ▶️ E-governance & e-residency platforms, such as Estonia's e-residency program ▶️ Orchestration software for SEZs, such as Mass. Yet, very few projects bundle deep civilizational design, true economic development frameworks, emerging technologies at their urban core, and a foundational federated network of charter cities. @alphacityinc is one of them. Alpha was founded by Bradford Cross. Brad explored AI 25 years ago, before AI became a thing. Brad explored crypto 15 years ago, before crypto became a thing. Brad is also managing general partner of @PronomosVC, a venture capital fund backing founders building new cities and special jurisdictions. He is now building Alpha City in Africa: charter cities ranging from core districts that supercharge foundational industries like agriculture, fishing and tourism, to portal districts at the cutting edge of crypto, AI and energy. Alpha sets a vibrant, sustainable new standard for human civilization, rich with opportunity, security, and an active, fulfilling lifestyle where everybody wins. In a recent inspiring interview co-hosted by @peerbase_, founder of @ipecity, and Rafael Castaneda, co-founder of @OxusFinance, Brad shared a compelling vision where AI and crypto form the technological backbone for reinventing human civilization from the ground up. By fusing principles of classical and social liberalism, Alpha City prototypes startup cities to demonstrate more efficient, accountable governance and vibrant economies built on zero taxation and pay-for-service models. The emerging world is viewed not as a problem but a fertile ground for bold governance experiments that could eventually transform even robust Western democracies. Education too must evolve radically with AI-driven personalized learning to prepare citizens for this new era. Through strategic immigration policies and decentralizing power, these new cities aim to be more adaptive and just. For those invested in the future of technology, governance, and society, this discussion offers a roadmap coupled with urgent calls to innovate, collaborate, and actively build these future models today. Link to the interview: youtube.com/watch?v=eR0tBR…

“If everyone thinks your idea is good, it's probably shit. If a lot of them think the idea is shit, there's a chance it's good.” — @bradfordcross

Nigeria’s adoption numbers are real, but usability is where markets either mature or stall. A lot of activity today is driven by stablecoins as dollar substitutes. That solves one problem. It does not automatically create everyday financial products. Bridging curiosity to usability means products that work for payroll, merchant payments and cross-border trade, not just trading apps. Where is the biggest friction right now for everyday users. On-ramps, UX, or trust?

Over 200 comments. 🫢❤️ Appreciate everyone rooting for Crypto Street. Nigeria ranks #1 in crypto adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa. The interest is here. The activity is growing. Now it’s about bridging the gap between curiosity and real-world usability! That’s the work. 🎥🇳🇬