A Year After Getting Scammed, 'Reddit Island' Users Are Putting Their Faith Into A Crypto Libertarian Who Just Got Out Of A Honduras Prison

Reddit Island has always been an ambitious project. Originally dreamt up (and abandoned) by Redditor u/matude in 2010, the project was revived last April by Redditor u/MrNoName_ishere (MrNoName) after he posted a series of memes to /r/memes suggesting users fund an island exclusively for Redditors that went viral.

MrNoName sparked a bit of a trend on the sub and used the steam from that virality to successfully launch /r/reddit_island, a subreddit boasting over 18,000 users at the time of writing dedicated to creating an actual island for Redditors.

In the first few months, users were determined to make it happen, scoping out potential islands for sale, drawing up flags and laws for the island and imagining what an island run by Redditors might look like. They also spent a lot of time memeing about the island, as Redditors do.

Among all those memes, though, were a lot of genuine efforts to essentially crowdfund an island, including one rogue GoFundMe page that raised about $200 before being shut down and refunded because it was being run by a minor. Whoops.

The last time we took a deep dive into /r/Reddit_Island in May 2021, the support behind the project was surprisingly strong. There were rumors floating around the subreddit that Elon Musk might be interested in funding it, based on Musk allegedly accepting a DM request about the island sent by a mod. Unfortunately, Musk never responded.

The most exciting, legitimate possibility for the wishful islanders was a proposition from Redditor u/IslandOwnerAlt who claimed to own an island in Cuba that he was willing to build the Redditor utopia on if they were willing to fund construction costs. Excited, the /r/Reddit_island mods gave him mod status.

“He came and things seemed good until he started asking for direct payments to his PayPal. I found this odd considering we had the GoFundMe set up,” MrNoName tells us over Reddit DM, “I was busy with other things at school so I sadly wasn't paying as much attention as I should have.”

Things started to smell fishy when another Redditor messaged MrNoName. “[The Redditor] informed me that you can't really own land like that in Cuba. We demanded official documentation from him and he ended up printing a clearly fake document. We removed him as a mod, we fucked up big time believing him in the first place.”

Sure enough, u/IslandOwnerAlt ended up being a scammer. The scam was revealed via a screenshot of a DM between u/Just_0_duck and u/IslandOwnerAl shortly after we published our first piece on Reddit Island. In the exchange, duck asks, “Is it true? Have we been fooled?” and Alt responds, “Yep. U f*** got scammed big time.”

The post gained over 600 upvotes. In a comment to the post, duck claims that u/IslandOwnerAlt managed to scam users out of around $700 by asking them to donate directly to his PayPal for construction costs. If you ask MrNoName, he says it was $500.

The scam dashed the hopes and morale of more than a few on the board according to MrNoName. “We were close to 20k then it went down to 18k [after the scam],” he tells us. “we tried moving the sub to a Minecraft one instead and that folded, too.” He also tells us it inspired some of the mods to leave and shares the link to a video by YouTuber Ghost Cum with over a million views about the debacle, detailing the whole scam and how it went down.

Shortly after the scam, u/void_seeker72 made a post void seeker announcing he was leaving the board, writing, “We've gone from shitposting, raiding a satire subreddit, to being scammed because we're so desperate for hope. I hope for the best but for now,” followed by the Ight Imma Head Out meme. The post gained over 100 upvotes and a few comments of users scolding themselves for falling for the scam at all.

MrNoName attempted to make the situation right by suggesting that any user who was scammed contact PayPal with their receipt. He tells us, “last we heard Paypal was doing an investigation into [IslandOwnerAlt],” but says he’s, “not sure about the results.”

When asked if his hopes were dashed by the scam, he writes, “for the most part,” but clearly still has some hope, writing, “whoever does it would have to have a much better plan than we did. I was thinking we could someday just get an island to make it into a nature reserve.”

Despite the damage that the scam did to morale, the board still sees some regular use. Most of the content is shitposts and memes mocking the project, but there’s still a subsection of users who hold onto hope that an island will one day happen.

For some of the most dedicated, those hopes were renewed with a post by Redditor u/CryptoDawn in April. The lengthy post title reads, “I just spent the last 5 years in Honduras Prisons because I was trying to create a new libertarian crypto nation and free society. I was also one of the original r/redditisland mods 8 years ago. I'm back now and I'm going to free everyone from overbearing governments.” Talk about a proposition.

In the post, CryptoDawn describes his attempts to build a “libertarian crypto nation” called “Bit Bastion” in Honduras through their ZEDE (Zone for Employment and Economic Development) program, described by him as “basically a program which allowed organizations to come to Honduras and set up their own autonomous city where they could do whatever they want.”

The post is vague on the details of the user’s arrest. He writes, “While I was in Honduras trying to set things right I was arrested and from there it just kept getting worse. I was given no chance to prove my innocence and go free and it wasn't even clear what I was being accused of. But I was still imprisoned and was stuck in Honduras prisons for over 5 years.” He then writes, “It sounds insane because it is but these are the things you can run into when you try to completely change the fabric of society. I feel like I was imprisoned because they wanted to stop my plans of creating a more free society but I still haven't given up on that goal.” We reached out to CryptoDawn for comment on his plans and his story but received no response.

In a follow-up post, which is pinned to the sub, CryptoDawn explains his plans for Reddit Island in further detail. “I'm putting together a list of abandoned offshore oil rigs that could be a good starting point for us,” he writes, suggesting the board should start “small” by establishing on an oil rig and work their way up to an island from there.

In the post, he directly mentions the Principality of Sealand, a micronation built on an abandoned offshore platform in the North Sea with a population of around 40. “Our offshore rig will be a beacon of freedom to everyone across the world,” he writes, “we can upgrade the rig and have over 100 people living on it out at sea.”

Throughout his explanation of the plan, CryptoDawn makes it very clear that the community can run on cryptocurrency. “By founding our free society on pro-crypto ideals we will attract a lot of high worth crypto businesses and generate billions in revenue for our new free society.” Again, although ambitious and promising, the exact details of the plan are a little vague.

CryptoDawn’s idea has been met with understandable criticism from some members of the community. u/NinjiaLiu made a comment highlighting the danger of living on a rig and worrying that CryptoDawn might start a cult. u/Ech_Death writes, “op what the fuck did you do to get in jail for 5 years.” Still, others see this as another sign of hope for the community. “I'm interested! This sounds like an amazing idea and finally has a plan,” a now-deleted user comments. “Soooo, this sounds pretty interesting,” writes u/chocochipshunter, who then offers his building expertise to the project.

Even MrNoName seems cautiously optimistic about the proposition when asked about it. “It is confirmed [CryptoDawn] was actually a mod of the old sub. We won't be taking any money this time around. If he fully wants our trust we suggested a live stream.” MrNoName then shares an idea for marketing the island, writing, “If we market this right we won't have to worry about money as much. [We could] pitch a reality show to see if Redditors can survive to make their own country, have it on Netflix or something.”

Pushing the added ambition of a Netflix series aside, the idea of turning Reddit Island into a libertarian crypto nation is a bit sweat-inducing from an outsider's perspective. It brings to mind a previous crypto nation project called Cryptoland.

Advertised as “the world's first private crypto island,” Cryptoland went viral a few months ago for its wild trailer featuring a 3D crypto coin and references to just about every crypto meme out there. So far, nothing has come of Cryptoland but memes and speculation, with many calling it a scam and seemingly nothing concrete disproving that notion. The crypto world, in general, has been rife with scams in the last few months, namely pump-and-dump schemes supported by big influencers like Logan Paul and Faze Clan, turning many crypto hopefuls against the idea altogether.

Trusting a fresh-from-prison crypto libertarian who has dreams of an island free from government interference that’s run by crypto with the future of Reddit Island is sure to turn some users away from the project altogether, especially a year after getting scammed. The proposition can’t help but come off as too-good-to-be-true and the lack of any solid proof about CryptoDawn’s identity and capital is also a cause for concern.

The only thing users of the board really have to go off of is the fact that CryptoDawn says he was a moderator of the original Reddit Island subreddit. We contacted u/matude to ask him for confirmation of this, revealing a whole new red flag in the situation: CryptoDawn was actually banned from /r/Redditisland after being made a mod. Matude told us:

"There's no moderation history anymore going back that long, but he shows up in the list of banned people. A mod has banned him 7 years ago and added a note 'went batshit as a moderator'. So it looks like he probably was a mod on redditisland for a short time and was then removed and banned as a user."

Digging through his Reddit profile, you’ll find copy-pastes of his original post to /r/Reddit_island on boards like /r/Entrepeneur, /r/Anarcho_capitalism (where his post gained over 500 upvotes and some support from commenters) and /r/Bitcoin (which it was deleted from).

Going back six years (pre-Honduras prison) to May 2016, CryptoDawn made a post to /r/Ethereum sharing his desire to start Bit Bastion using the ZEDE program in Honduras. In another post he offers links to a potential island, writing, “I know a lot of people will say that you can't just buy some land from a country and be an independent nation but here's the thing. Look at how bureaucratic and backwards some governments are if we raised around the approximate amount the dao raised I'm sure a lot of countries would allow us to break off and become an independent nation.”

Similarly to the /r/Reddit_island community, the reactions from commenters are mixed at best, some finding the idea unfeasible and built on unstable premises and others seemingly ready to go all-in. CryptoDawn proceeded to copy-paste that post and several others around crypto and libertarian related subreddits throughout the weeks, throwing out as many lines for support as possible and seemingly snagging a few hopeful fish, often linking to a Bit Bastion Slack channel in the posts and a Google Form asking questions about the island. He continued to make posts advertising Bit Bastion throughout the year and hyping up the idea of buying land in Honduras.

These past posts reveal that CryptoDawn seemed equally determined to make Bit Bastion a thing back in 2016. He made a subreddit for the project (now deleted) a website (now inactive) and a YouTube channel, where several videos about the project were posted to a few hundred views each. The project even had some articles written about it from sites like CCN and The Merkle not all of them were in its favor.

In September, the Bit Bastion project received criticism from Alexandra Scaggs of FT.com, writing, “there are many, many, many problems with doing anything in Honduras,” writing about their high murder rate and “a military police hit list targeting environmentalists.” The writer also criticizes the project’s plans to make money, which at the time was based on the idea of building a crypto casino, which they claimed would bring jobs to the people of Honduras.

On October 24th, 2016, a video was uploaded to the Bit Bastion YouTube channel advertising a Crowdsale event to raise money for land and profitable ventures for the state. On the 27th, he made a post to /r/Libertarian sharing the Bit Bastion Slack channel. After that, silence until April 2022 when he posted the “I just spent the last 5 years in Honduras Prisons” post to /r/Entrepeneur.

CryptoDawn’s history only raises further questions, including the most glaring ones, “What happened to the money from the 2016 crowdsale?” and “Why did you go to jail?” Maybe the crowdsale money is being invested in this new, 2022 version of the island. CryptoDawn did comment in his original post to /r/reddit_island about Bit Bastion saying he wants to use some of the crypto he saved from before his arrest to move around 60 people to the island, so it’s a fair enough assumption.

It’s harder to safely assume that he has the full funds and organization to start a nation, however, without more proof, meaning donation requests could just be a few tantalizing posts away. In that same post, he says he wants to establish the community on the Pitcairn Islands, not mentioning the pre-aforementioned oil rig, writing, “The inhabitants of Pitcairn have been looking for people to move there for a long time anyways so this could be just what they needed.” “Your Pitcairn plan is flawed, you cannot take over their government by getting a majority with 60 people as they are still part of the British Overseas Territory, with limited self-governance,” u/OldMariner responds to the comment, highlighting the type of pushback CryptoDawn receives with every one of his ambitious posts.

CryptoDawn has so far not asked for any donations from Reddit Islanders or any of the other crypto subs he’s baiting with his copy-paste messages, which awards the user at least some points. However, that baiting brings up another problem: if the island actually happens, it is not going to be Reddit Island. It is not going to be the paradise for Redditors that the project was built on, rather, it’s going to be an island for crypto investors and believers who use Reddit.

For all we know, CryptoDawn’s intentions are pure. He seems legitimately interested in starting a crypto nation like so many other crypto investors out there and all the power to him if he can pull it off legally and successfully. But turning Reddit Island into a crypto-casino-driven libertarian city on an oil rig just doesn’t scream, “We did it, Reddit!”

The proper level of organization also doesn’t seem to be there on either side of the situation, which is what played a big role in the subreddit getting scammed the first time. The mods got too eager and gave too much power to someone without the proper proof or credentials and it seems very possible that they’re falling into the same trap again based on the fact that CryptoDawn’s post is pinned to the top of /r/Reddit_Island.

Until CryptoDawn gives /r/Reddit_Island users a solid plan, a better description of why he went to prison and proof that he has the capital to back up his claims (or better yet, proof that he owns an island) it’s hard to see this as anything but a risky move.