Corcovado’s Crypto-Hamlet

Corcovado, is forming the world’s first digital country and we are pleased to say we are now working to build the worlds’ first Crypto-Hamlet
In March I wrote Corcovado A Digital Country, introducing the idea of the worlds first non-biologically geographical country. In the months since the idea has gained clarity and momentum. The idea of Corcovado-V2 has emerged in the way of forming a Crypto-Hamlet as an incentivised social experiment to explore the way we live, moving into an unprecedented era.
What is Corcovado?
Corcovado is a community of people from around the world choosing a life that embraces diversity, the unknown and is interested in alternative ways to create a life of purpose and connection in amongst our world’s ambiguity.
Corcovado-V1 began in 2016 with a hut in the woods, to open up a space to create with no phone and no internet, a chance to reconnect with what is real and to remove the goals and ‘doing’ of modern life and to allow nature to become normal once again and see what emerges.

ON+OFF Grid Lifestyle
A framing philosophy for Corcovado living is that modern life is lived best when oscillating between an ON+OFF grid experience. The beauty of the biological presence and the incredible opportunity to connect instantly to our global community together creating a brand new emergent opportunity for human experience.
Research on busyness, loneliness & purpose.
I have been encouraged to see the Big Think endorse Emma Seppälä’s work
‘The idea is to balance linear thinking — which requires intense focus — with creative thinking, which is borne out of idleness. Switching between the two modes seems to be the optimal way to do good, inventive work.’
And to see the TED community supporting the idea that busy isn’t always better.
‘Consuming less starts with working less — or, better yet, with consuming our prosperity in the form of leisure.’
I was encouraged through researching the Renaissance when I found Epicurus whose idea that living in commune with friends creates the most happy life had been so successful. The idea spread for hundreds of years, and at it’s peak approximately 400,000 people in northern Europe were living in Epicurean communes.
And to finish my recent research highlights, in Sebastian Junger’s book Tribe, he talks about how humans function best in groups of less than 50 in adverse conditions with clear purpose and understanding, an idea all too lost on middle class suburbia.
All of these findings have encouraged me that what we are thinking about is not new but desperately needed at this dramatic point in the human story. Enter the Crypto-Hamlet.
Why Crypto & Why Hamlet?
Crypto refers to
Cryptography which is the the magic sauce of the blockchain method which powers digital currencies like Bitcoin. But at it’s heart, the blockchain method is far more revolutionary than providing infrastructure for currency. It provides a decentralised ledger, a source of truth that is owned by the network, NOT by a government, centralised bank or agency. It is a resilient and democratised way of proving agreement in many forms. The Ethereum Network for example has embraced a more open stance on what can be established on top of this extremely powerful method of authentication.
Over the last few months on Patreon, Slack and Twitter, we’ve been experimenting with making decisions and collating funds together as a community. We can take these experiments further through creating a new token using Ethereum. We plan to raise funds, make democratic decisions, provide identity, incentivise work and build community in a uniquely global yet tribal egalitarian way.
Hamlet refers to
‘A small human settlement, a satellite entity to a larger settlement. In British geography, a hamlet is considered smaller than a village and distinctly without a church.’
A Hamlet has a number of dwellings and a few services but depends on a broader infrastructure for its sustainability. I believe that by creating cryptographic infrastructure for the nation of Corcovado and experimenting with its first Hamlet we have the potential to create a solution that is powerful and replicable in places around the world for people to live in close community and have safety, space and time to think about and do what matters most in the world.
Our Corcovadian community will be made up of Nomads, Homes and Hamlets. For the last few months I have been working with numerous people on the first Corcovado hut prototype. A 24ft x 8ft private quarters. The largest Shepherds Hut which is easy to transport by tractor and beavertail lorry, made from trees onsite, recycled windows and costing less than $10,000.

The Crypto-Hamlet is made by turning a House into a hub and having ten huts on the surrounding grounds. The hub and the huts make a hamlet for up to 20 adults. Each Corcovado Hut can provide for a family of 4, 2 adults and 2 children. This creates a central hub for community, a medical room and on grid facilities like the living room and kitchen, and also creates space and simplicity in the individual huts to inspire creativity peace and independence.
During the one year social experiment there will be approximately 5 full time adults serving and organising the crypto & hamlet communities and the rest of the hamlet will be comprised of weekend retreats, week long workshops, and couple of season long apprenticeships will likely also be available. The year long experiment is rooted in four 10 week seasons marked by natures transitions. The detailed budget and 18 month schedule will be released following this article but some ballpark figures below give an indication of where we are headed.
Corco Hut : $10,000 to construct x 10 = $100k
Communal infastructure eg sports facilities & farming machinery: $50k
Corcovado worker startup incentives : $100k
20% revenue to estate for hub provision (the cottage & land)
= $250 + 20% = $300,000
The minimum initial token release will at least aim to cover the costs we are aware of listed above.

Cone Tokens
Acquiring Cone
Fir cones grow on the Scots pine trees where V1 is based in Sussex UK and provide a way to root the token of Corcovado in the biological world.
CON (Corcovado Cone Tokens) will be bought with ETH (Ethereum) or BTC (Bitcoin). Whilst still quite volatile, both ETH and BTC have gone on a fascinating rollercoaster of value. It is possible the value of Cone might increase, the token should be bought with the intention to actually use as part of the growing Corcovado community.

CON can also be accrued through doing incentivised work for the network or onsite at a Crypto-Hamlet. There are 7 interdependent divisions of labour at Corcovado all of which can benefit from a combination of hamlet and networked community work ranging from academic research to publishing arts to building huts, the details of which will follow along with 18 month schedule and detailed budget.
Spending Cones
CON will be able to be spent initially in 5 following ways.
- Purchasing products, hut timeshares & published content by Corcovado
- Paying CorcoCreators for their individual products or services
- Giving token to the CorcoFund, providing basic income where needed
- Converting CON to BTC or ETH Token to in turn convert to USD
- Paying for CorcoEvents, retreats or accommodation.
Bringing Corcovado to a city near you!
Corcovado -V1, the first year in the woods will be complete on October 31st 2017. We have been creating a film to show the transition of the seasons and the development of V1 of which the final filming day will be August 12th.

Once the film is completed and the V1 handbook is published and printed we plan to go on a tour in November & December to share the story of ON+OFF grid living, the thinking behind Corcovado, with live Q&A and a panel with friends and guests who have been to Corco-V1 and offer a chance for anyone in the community to purchase CorcoCones and find out the different ways they can actively Cocreate V2.

If you have any questions please do email trae@corcova.do or ask to join our slack at corcocreators.slack.com.
The idea of this article is to articulate a direction of travel, the ideas may still be subject to change and will certainly evolve. Stay tuned as the detailed budget, schedule, and streams of work will come out here soon.
For a flourishing future
Dave & CorcoCreators

