Villa Burbuja: Virtual Plots in Libya and Election Standoff

Villa Burbuja buys virtual land by the sea on the Libyan coast

How much does a piece of desert on the border between Libya and Egypt, by the sea, with beach and fresh water, cost without ever setting foot in the country? On Earth 2, a virtual land platform, the answer is around a few cents per tile, and a community calling itself Villa Burbuja has responded with a collective purchase that already exceeds a hundred plots. The starting point was a message with very specific instructions: location on the Libyan coast, the warning that this strip was wanted «WITHOUT FOREIGN FLAGS», a referral code —8NBKTKKBOJ— and a 5% share of the expense for whoever used it and another 5% for whoever promoted it. «WE WILL BE ABLE TO DECIDE EVERYTHING HERE», announced its author. The city intended to govern itself as a small state before it had streets.

What is Earth 2 and what do you buy with a tile

Earth 2 sells grids of virtual land —called tiles— that can be grouped to build cities, mines, crops or islands. The initial approach ruled out settling on an island, arguing that it was preferable to concentrate buyers who were scattered, including those of other nationalities who already occupied the same strip. The border of Libya with Egypt, with beach and fresh water, was the chosen destination. The price of the new tile was around 0.633 euros, according to the references the neighbors handled. From day one there was talk of building a castle and placing artillery on top, although the castle, it was admitted, «is fake, only the island exists».

From 15 tiles to 617: how the virtual municipality grew

Growth was rapid. A promoter announced 15 tiles purchased; shortly after the count rose to 52 squares. One addition brought 100 squares at once and forced, half-jokingly, to propose a statue for the «founding citizen». Another of those registered accumulated 617 tiles, with thousands of messages and thanks behind him, according to the table shared to calibrate voting rights. The municipal area expanded towards Bardia, towards Egypt and towards the interior of the region, with neighborhoods named Cerro Calópez, La Sagra, El Bronx or Burbuja d'Or. The project soon found its speculative vein: someone put the entire Earth up for sale for 10,000 euros, after having bought a globe for 10 euros in a hypermarket —«they're flying off the shelves»— and another offered 2 bitcoins for a flowerbed. There was no shortage of absurd requests: two islands, 10 bitcoins, a hundred Tesla shares and three apartments in Mallorca, all in a single sentence.

The 5% referral: the economy that fattens the land

Behind the enthusiasm there is a classic recruitment model. Each purchase carries a referral code that distributes a percentage between buyer and promoter, and the neighbors circulate theirs with ease: one even proclaimed «the best discount code» with a different chain from the initial one, and the confusion of options was justified by saying that it was enough to click on a duplicate because the votes «would be added later». Whoever buys a tile not only acquires land: they fatten the municipality and, incidentally, the relative position of its promoter. The defensive strategy was discussed in almost medieval terms: going up to the hills that dominate the cove to have a citadel from which to resist attacks from «other barbarian laises».

The census and the battle for the electoral model

The matter drifted towards something more ambitious: deciding the system of government. A consultation was peine on whether to set the voting rules now, limited to registered citizens, and one of the neighbors, an engineer by training, prepared a table with up to eleven electoral models. The names say it all: balanced, harmonic, ultracapitalist, communist, conservative, liberal, socialist, populist, sapiential, ultrasocial and one named after whoever proposed it. The weight of the vote combined number of tiles, seniority, messages and thanks. According to that table, in the same case, the ultracapitalist and communist models granted identical power of 100%, while the sapiential left it at 12.66%. Whoever proposed a model could be harmed by it, and the warning was blunt: «Don't propose numbers because they sound good to you». The consultation closed with a clear victory for leaving it for later.

Does the project's activity serve to distribute voting power?

No, according to many of the reproaches the system received. Messages and seniority are manipulable, it was argued: anyone can inflate their counter in a week without spending a euro on land. Whoever buys tiles, even with a parallel account, at least makes the city grow. Hence the proposal to separate the census of the virtual city from any inherited scale and prioritize seniority as an owner, not activity in the forum. The discussion about which model to use to decide the model remained open and unresolved: whoever prepared the spreadsheets offered to organize a test vote, which never took place.

One year later: logo, census and the promised crypto

Over time, the project celebrated its first anniversary and expanded. The logo was debated, with a neighbor voting for the «noble and gallant blazoned shield» of a certain artisan, a census that was left half-done was discussed and its own cryptocurrency was announced for the third quarter, with no later news in the thread. The virtual city gained an illustrious resident: the founder of Zigurat City installed four tiles with a blue flag in Cerro Calópez and set up a melon stand that, jokingly, was presented as competition for a supermarket's fruit shop. Trinc graphs were also shared to measure interest, and the slowdown was attributed to development being «only organic» while technical problems, cyberattacks and difficulties with refunds and payments were resolved. The neighbors continued to expand positions every anniversary.

The closest thing to a parliament that this municipality has had has been a spreadsheet and a survey closed before anyone agreed. The land, however, is still there. With or without a flag.