Passports for Sale

Last March, Malta began accepting citizenship applications from wealthy foreigners willing to invest $1.5 million in the country in exchange for Maltese citizenship (and with it, all the benefits that come with belonging to an EU member state). While the Maltese program was by no means the first of its kind, it received an enormous amount of attention in Europe for putting a price tag on EU passports. Then, in May, an entrepreneur named Roger Ver launched Passports for Bitcoin, a service that helps clients use bitcoin to buy St. Kitts and Nevis citizenship. St. Kitts has exchanged citizenship for cash for years, but thanks to Ver, it’s gaining a reputation among the techie-libertarian set as a go-to place to escape the U.S. tax code.