114: Chapter 114 Second Bankruptcy Warning: Money Will Never Be Enough

Chen Yuan's words rang in his ears, making Lin Zhou feel the heavy pressure.

Six months.

A time limit so specific it was almost desperate.

This was already the second time; the crisis of bankruptcy had always shadowed him.

If he could not solve it at the root, all his previous grand blueprints and long-term plans would pale in comparison right now, lacking any foundation.

The office fell into a long silence, with only the faint humming of the air conditioning system.

Lin Zhou leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and his thoughts raced at an astonishing speed.

Money, money, money.

In the final analysis, it was still a problem of money.

He quickly took stock of all the cards in his hand.

Land? Bir Tawil was worthless except for its sand; its only value lay in its "ownerless" status, which was political capital, not economic capital.

Population? With only a little over a hundred pioneers and a hundred and fifty police officers, it could not even form the most basic domestic demand market.

Resources? Not yet explored; even if there were any, extraction and refining would require huge upfront investment and long time cycles.

Technology? Gene optimization technology was his trump card, but as Chen Yuan said, it could not quench his immediate thirst. Everything else was obtained from the system, lacked a cohesive system, and could not be industrialized immediately.

All paths were blocked.

This was a dead end.

No, there must be a way.

Lin Zhou opened his eyes abruptly, his gaze sharp.

He had overlooked the biggest card in his hand, a unique, irreproducible trump card—sovereignty!

A sovereign state could do so many things.

Traditional taxes, trade, and resource exports all required time to accumulate. But he did not have to follow the beaten path.

How did those small countries and microstates in the world survive?

Monaco relied on gambling and tourism, Andorra relied on tax-free shopping, Liechtenstein relied on stamps and company registration, and Nauru even once got rich by selling phosphate mines and "passports."

Without exception, they all utilized their unique national policies to find a niche in the global economic system and then took it to the extreme.

So, what should the niche of the Cyber Freedom Republic be?

Gambling? Tourism? Tax exemption?

These all required a large amount of infrastructure and stable customer flow, which did not suit a desert.

Lin Zhou's thoughts finally locked onto two words—"tax avoidance" and "data."

What was the most valuable thing in the 21st century?

Not oil, not gold, but data.

Global internet giants, financial oligarchs, and multinational corporations produced massive amounts of data every year. This data was their core asset, but it also faced increasingly strict regulation.

The U.S. CLOUD Act, the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and various countries' cybersecurity laws... were all trying to lock data within their own national borders.

What if... what if there were a place that was legally absolutely neutral, physically isolated from the world, yet could connect to the world online, and could provide the highest level of security and privacy protection for this data?

What if there were a place that could allow those multinational corporations to aggregate global profits here through legal financial structures, enjoying the lowest, or even zero, tax rates in the world?

A "Digital Switzerland," an "offshore data and financial center"!

This thought jumped out, quickly igniting all of Lin Zhou's thoughts.

This was truly a business with a ten-thousand-fold return!

He did not need to build massive physical industries; he only needed top-tier network infrastructure, the most secure data centers, and a legal system he defined himself that was extremely attractive to global capital.

The investment was much smaller compared to traditional industries, and the returns would be astronomical!

Those global giants, in order to save tens or hundreds of billions in taxes, would definitely be willing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in "service fees."

"Old Chen." Lin Zhou spoke to break the silence, his words revealing uncontrollable excitement.

Chen Yuan looked up at him, somewhat confused. He could not imagine what kind of drastic change had occurred in this young man's thoughts in these few minutes.

"We are not doing physical industries anymore."

"What?" Chen Yuan thought he had misheard.

"At least, in the short term, we won't focus on physical industries." Lin Zhou stood up and paced back and forth in the office, his thoughts becoming clearer and clearer. "What we need to do is provide services for global capital."

"Specifically, financial services and data services."

He turned around and looked at the stunned Chen Yuan and Zhang Zhe, the head of the Legislative Yuan, whom he had just called in.

"Zhang Zhe, you must organize your team immediately. Refer to the laws of countries like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and Switzerland, and at the fastest speed, tailor-make the world's most lenient, favorable, and secure 'Offshore Company Law,' 'Digital Asset Protection Law,' and 'Bank Secrecy Law' for us!"

"The core of the law has only one point: companies registered in the Cyber Freedom Republic will enjoy a permanent zero tax rate on their legal global earnings! Any data stored on our country's servers will be protected by the highest level of national sovereignty; without the consent of the company owner, no organization or individual, including our own government, has the right to view it!"

Zhang Zhe was shaken, his mouth opening involuntarily.

This... this is directly trying to undermine the global foundation!

"Old Chen!" Lin Zhou turned to the Minister of Finance again. "I need you to fully implement the functions of the national bank; we need to be able to open global offshore accounts. Let those companies easily transfer money in, and then 'legally' transfer it out."

Upon hearing this, Chen Yuan's face flushed red, and anger surged up.

"You are engaging in wishful thinking! This is undermining the Americans' foundation. Such global financial behavior must be built on national credit! Why should we make global clients trust us? Just because of two citizens, a desert, and fourteen countries with diplomatic relations? We haven't even achieved integration into the international payment system!!"

Lin Zhou smiled apologetically, his tone softening: "Old Chen, don't be anxious, listen to me finish."

"This is indeed sketching a grand prospect, but it requires all parties to cooperate with us to realize it. As long as we can gain widespread recognition and become a real country, these won't be problems."

Chen Yuan was still angry and retorted: "Aren't we stuck right now because of restricted diplomacy and a lack of universal recognition? How do you say we can achieve this? And how will we solve the diplomatic pressure from the United States?"

Lin Zhou smiled: "The U.S. government is very powerful, but Wall Street is even more powerful. The government is the government, and Wall Street is Wall Street. Now it depends on whether there are any gamblers willing to invest for a hundredfold or thousandfold return in the future."

"Right now, we are a company called a 'state,' and what we want is venture capital!"

Chen Yuan gradually calmed down, and after a moment of contemplation, he said: "We can try; there's nothing to lose if we fail anyway. So, how much profit do you intend to use to exchange for Wall Street's support and resources?"

"How about forty percent of the future data center maintenance and hosting fees?"

"...Then let's give it a try!"