Frequently Asked Questions
The practical questions of a person deciding whether to enter, or who has already entered
What this document is. Short answers to what is asked most often, with a pointer to where the full answer is. It establishes nothing and creates no rules: the rules are in the Charter and the Declaration, and on any divergence they prevail. During the founding period - from 22 November 2026 until the Declaration is adopted - signing the Declaration and entering the people are suspended: a people defined by an adopted text does not yet exist. During this period identity verification is carried out free of charge, and on its completion a temporary document of a participant in the founding is issued, rather than a passport (the document "The Founding Period", Part 2, section 5). The temporary document is issued in the same contract as the passport (the document "Where We Are Now"). The answers about entry, the contribution, and the passport describe the main regime, which will begin after the Declaration is adopted.
Legal objections - about self-determination, legal personality, and recognition - are examined separately, in detail and with the arguments against us: Objections and Answers.
I. Money and participation
What is the 79 dollars for, and where does it go?
The contribution covers the cost of identity verification and passport issuance and sustains the people's infrastructure. It goes into the common treasury and is allocated in published shares: platform 25 per cent, growth and communications 30, community projects 20, education 15, reserve 10.
The contribution does not buy belonging: belonging arises by signing the Declaration.
→ Treasury
Will there be further payments later?
No. The contribution is one-time: after the passport is received there are no annual or monthly payments.
What if I cannot pay?
Then, once entry requires payment, you will be able to join an open queue, and the contribution for you could then be made by another person or by the Treasury; there is no guarantee that it will be. There will be a second button at the payment step - "I need the contribution": it will ask nothing and will put you in an open queue where only a number and a date are visible. Anyone may pay for the queue, but no one may choose whom to pay for - payment is always made for whoever is at the head of the queue. If the contribution is made for you, the passport will be exactly like everyone else's: the registry does not record who paid for it. You will have to wait for the passport to be issued, and there is no way to know in advance how long. Belonging to the people does not depend on this: it arises by signing the Declaration, not by the contribution. More detail is in the document The Earthling Path.
I have no time and no wish to take an active part. Is there any point in entering?
Yes. Once you have received the passport, there is no required activity: you can remain a participant without spending time, and join in later or not at all.
Passive participation is full participation. Entering itself increases the size of the people, and with it the weight of its common voice - and that is already doing your part. Activity usually comes later, when a person sees that others' participation brings results.
If you do nothing for a long time, your status becomes inactive: the right to vote is retained in full; an inactive earthling is not included in the number of earthlings on which the quorum is calculated, so as not to raise the quorum requirement for everyone else, and on your first action the status is restored.
What happens to my citizenship and my taxes?
Nothing. Your citizenship, your tax obligations, and the jurisdiction to which you are subject are not affected. The earthling passport gives no visa rights, does not replace the documents of your country, and has no force in state institutions.
II. Identity and data
What do you store about me?
Real first and last names, document numbers, and biometric images are not stored. We store: a pseudonym, an email address, a country, confirmation that you are 18 or over, and a wallet address, as well as the technical data and platform usage data listed in the Privacy Policy.
Identity verification leaves behind the verification status, the document type and issuing country, the numeric verification scores, the reasons for rejection, and irreversible hashes computed with the server's secret key - a hash of the document number and a single combined hash of the first name, last name, and date of birth from the document; the document number, first name, last name, and date of birth themselves are not retained; the hashes are stored solely so that one person cannot hold two valid passports.
→ Biometric Verification Policy
Is a real name required?
For verification, yes: your first and last names as they appear in the document are needed to check against it. Other participants see you under the pseudonym you choose; it is not shown in the open passport check. The document data are checked only at the moment of verification; afterwards nothing remains of them but the document type, the issuing country, and irreversible hashes.
→ Biometric Verification Policy
What if the data leak?
We have no real names, document numbers, or images: only what is held can be disclosed. A leak could affect the email address, the pseudonym, the country, the wallet address, technical data, and platform usage data, and, from verification, its result and the irreversible hashes. A hash is irreversible and is computed with the server's secret key: a name or a document number cannot be read out of it, and without the key they cannot be guessed by brute force either. Notice of an incident is given within 72 hours.
Do you hand over data to states?
Only under a court decision in force or an equivalent lawful requirement, whose legitimacy is checked in every case. The participant is notified, unless the decision prohibits notification.
→ Biometric Verification Policy
What happens when I leave?
Exit is only ever voluntary, and no reasons need be given: a statement, 72 hours for confirmation (the pause can be waived), then you burn the passport yourself with your own key. The server does not store your keys and cannot prevent it; no one is entitled to burn the passport for you, but until the contract owner's rights are transferred to a multisignature, issuing and burning a passport are technically available to a single key (the document "Where We Are Now").
Burning the passport does not by itself delete data: account data are deleted at your request. Irreversible hashes are retained in pseudonymized form solely so that one person cannot hold two valid passports. Your units of account remain your property. You can return at any time.
III. Power and governance
Can I be expelled?
No. No procedure of expulsion exists under any circumstances or for any majority.
And your vote cannot be taken away for your views. Not for how you vote, not for disagreement with decisions, and not as a general punishment for breaking rules. There is one measure addressed to a person - a warning, and it takes nothing away: not the vote, not belonging, not the right to submit proposals, not the right to create Cells - the small working groups - and to join them, not access to services, nothing at all. The other measures are addressed to a project or a Cell, not to a person.
The single exception is a proven attack on the voting mechanism itself: collusion, buying or selling a vote, coercing others, an attempt to obtain a second passport. Then the vote is suspended for up to 6 months by a decision taken by secret ballot with a 75 per cent majority, with a right of defence and appeal. Opinions are never grounds for suspension.
Who actually governs?
After the Declaration is adopted, the sole decision-making body is the DAO Assembly, that is, all the participants. During the founding period the only discretionary power with regard to the texts is the decision of the author of the Declaration to include proposals in the text (the document "The Founding Period", Part 2, section 2); the author of the Declaration, who is the founder of the project, has no other special rights (the points at which the author, as founder, has to be trusted before adoption - the treasury and the owner key of the registry contract - are set out in the document "Where We Are Now"): against the holder's will, the author burns the temporary document of a participant in the founding only on the exhaustive grounds set out in that same document (Part 2, section 5).
A transitional period is under way, and we acknowledge this openly: some functions are still performed procedurally, the treasury key is held by the founder (for now the signature threshold on its wallet is one), and transferring the treasury keys to a multisignature is a criterion for moving between phases of the Roadmap. But even during the founding period the founder is not entitled to change the Declaration (other than by including proposals under the open procedure of that period), deprive anyone of status, spend common funds for personal purposes, or block decentralization.
→ Roadmap
What prevents a narrow group from seizing governance?
Capture requires accumulation, and there is nothing to accumulate: the vote is tied one-to-one to a confirmed human being, is not for sale, and is not derived from money, reputation, or office. The unamendable core is placed beyond any vote.
Instead of a guardian who would become a master, there is the right to leave together with the registry: passports and the records of them lie on a public network, not on our servers, so a capture of the platform after the Declaration is adopted is reversible: if the implementation of the Declaration becomes impossible as a result of a seizure of governance, the shutdown of infrastructure, or other circumstances, confirmed earthlings will be able to continue the people in existence on a different technical or organizational basis, relying on the same registry (Declaration, Article 11); a new platform is built by published rules, while the code of the platform and of identity verification is closed, because it works with personal data. The record of signing the Declaration and the hashes by which a person's uniqueness is checked are kept not in the registry but on our servers, so a new platform will have to build its own identity verification (the document "Where We Are Now"). The gain from capture is not zero today: until the contract owner's rights are transferred to a multisignature, and while the treasury's signature threshold is one, whoever seizes these keys will be able to issue and burn entries in the same registry and dispose of the treasury (the document "Where We Are Now").
Is the Independent Council a shadow senate?
No. Its opinions are advisory only: it cannot block decisions, has no veto, takes no part in finances, and cannot even delay putting a question to a vote. A member of the Council can be recalled only on a stated ground, and disagreement with their position is not such a ground.
The Council has not yet been formed.
IV. Ethics and position
Is this a cult?
You cannot leave a cult. Leaving here is one action with your own key, and no one can prevent it, the founder included. No reasons need be given.
There is no power of some people over others: no one holds a position above another person, coordinators are recallable at any time, and criticism is a right, not an offence. The values are named in Article 3 of the Declaration: the highest of them is life; the others include freedom, dignity, planetary solidarity, and care for the planet. No one here asks about your faith, your views, or your way of life.
Is this crypto? Will someone make money from it?
The vote cannot be bought and does not depend on money - this is an unamendable rule. Blockchain is used where a record that cannot be altered without detection is needed: passports and the treasury. A voting tool that keeps a personal vote secret is still being chosen (the document "Where We Are Now").
The unit of account has not been issued and is traded nowhere today: the economy of participation is kept in internal accounts. Exchange availability in the future is possible but is not promised and is not an aim, and no one promises growth in value under any course of events.
How are you different from other DAOs?
The infrastructure is the same, and there is no sense in pretending otherwise. The difference is in what it is connected to.
Previous attempts foundered on three things. One token, one vote: whoever has more funds decides. No identity verification: one person votes with many wallets. No unamendable foundation: the rules of voting themselves become the subject of a vote.
Here the vote is tied to a confirmed living human being and does not depend on a balance; the unit of account gives no votes, whatever the amount held; organizations cannot be participants; and belonging, the equal vote, the right to leave, and the values are placed beyond voting altogether.
Has this scheme been tested at scale? No. We say only that the causes of failure in earlier attempts are named and that answers to them are built into the design.
Does AI take decisions about me?
Identity verification is performed by an automated system, and a refusal by it is not final: you are entitled to demand review by a human being, and after two unsuccessful automated attempts review by a human being is carried out without a separate request. If supporting tools are used to analyse proposals and project applications, they decide nothing: their outputs are advisory, and their reasons are disclosed.
Will the law ever recognize this?
There is nothing to wait for, and no one to expect it from: no procedure exists by which a voluntary non-territorial community could be recognized as a people, and there is no general register of peoples. The existing procedures - the UN list of Non-Self-Governing Territories, national procedures for recognizing indigenous peoples - rest either on territory or on the domestic law of a particular state, and a community of our kind can go through none of them.
There is something else. Legal visibility - when a people is treated as a people where a specific question arises: at venues, in consultations, in proceedings. It accumulates through practice, time, the number of participants, and legal work, and all four depend on us rather than on someone else's authority. No one makes any promise about how fast or slow this will be; the arguments against us are examined without softening.
What is actually working already, and what is not?
Working: identity verification, the platform, the system of Cells. The registry contract is deployed; during the founding period, on completion of identity verification, a temporary document of a participant in the founding is issued, and passports will begin to be issued after the Declaration is adopted. The treasury is held in a Safe wallet, and its transactions are public and verifiable by any person at the wallet's address.
Not working yet: no substantive votes have been held, the treasury smart contracts - the programs that execute decisions without an intermediary - have not been deployed, and the unit of account has not been issued. There is still no multisignature on the treasury wallet: the signature threshold is one, the key is with the founder, and this is visible at the wallet's address. Transferring the treasury keys to a multisignature of elected signatories under the rules of Article 3 of the Charter or to the control of the Assembly is a criterion for moving between phases of the Roadmap. The Core Nodes and the Emergency Multisig - those entrusted with technical support and emergency response - have not been elected, and the Independent Council has not been formed.
→ Roadmap
The list is not closed: as new questions appear, the document is extended.