The Republic of the Marshall Islands used to be a US territory, and is now a sovereign country — though it’s still closely associated with the

The Marshall Islands SOV cryptocurrency: the saga winds down

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2021-06-04 19:00:06

The Republic of the Marshall Islands used to be a US territory, and is now a sovereign country — though it’s still closely associated with the US, and uses the US dollar as its currency. About half of the Republic’s budget is US foreign aid.

The US used to test hydrogen bombs on the islands, and still owes the country over $500 million in reparations. Foreign aid from the US is due to be cut in half — from $60 million to $30 million — when the financial provisions of the Compact of Free Association between the US and the Marshall Islands expire in 2023.

So in March 2018, the Republic decided to issue its own currency, the Sovereign, or SOV — on a blockchain! [Press kit, 2018, archive]

Much like Facebook’s Libra, the SOV was strangled in the crib by regulators — and only dragged on for years because the crypto true believers promoting it wouldn’t take no for an answer.

In early 2018, the 2017 crypto bubble had only just peaked — and making ICO tokens and selling them still looked like a plausible way to generate free money. Though it usually wasn’t a country doing it.