Alice Chen opens a glass door and leads the way past a wall of stickers bearing slogans such as "Make Death Optional" and "Live on Bitcoin". The room we've entered is part messy science lab, part share-house kitchen.
"Welcome to the Maker Space," Chen says. Sunlight peeks through palms swaying in the afternoon breeze outside, but what we've come to see lives in the windowless black tent sitting in the corner.
Chen unzips the door and retrieves a beaker from a small fridge inside.
"You can't find this anywhere else in the world," she says, holding up a vivid green liquid. This is what she came all the way from Canada to Próspera, a libertarian enclave on the Honduran island of Roatán, to develop — a live algae drink she says could add 20 years to your life.
"It's only possible here in Próspera because of their meta-regulatory framework," Chen says.
In Canada, where Chen was studying for her PhD, it would have taken months, if not years, to get approval to test the product.
"I would have been kicked out of any university even for just consuming it myself," she says.
So when she heard about the libertarian utopia in the Caribbean where she could bring it to life without those regulatory constraints, she dropped out and flew south.
In Próspera, businesses get to choose their own regulations from a menu of over 30 countries — or even propose new ones.
"We couldn't find any, so we created our own," says Alice, who's already assembled a small group of willing volunteers to test the product.
"The fact is, nowhere else in the world would regulators allow us to experiment, like, is this safe for human consumption, right?"
Chen's experiment is nothing out of the ordinary among the tight-knit group of biohackers, tech entrepreneurs and crypto bros who inhabit Próspera, a private city run by an American company. Próspera itself is a radical experiment, billed as "the future of human governance, privately run and for profit".
So-called "start-up cities" with light regulations, ultra-low taxes and minimal government oversight have long been a dream in online libertarian circles in the US. In Honduras, one of Latin America's poorest nations, it's become a reality. Próspera might be the most advanced test case for those libertarian ideas, which some hope to take global.
The project has the backing of America's tech elite. The Delaware-based company that runs the zone says it's raised almost $200 million in investment, including from venture capital firms linked to Silicon Valley billionaires Peter Thiel, Sam Altman and Marc Andreesen. Supporters say private cities like Próspera can help alleviate poverty in nations plagued by corruption and crime.
But in Honduras, where more than half the country lives in poverty, those claims have been the subject of fierce debate. The former government tried to shut Próspera down, claiming it was an affront to national sovereignty, offering little benefit to the nation. To its critics, it's an experiment gone dangerously wrong.
Making its own laws
A boom gate halfway along the main road, manned by a smiling security guard with a handgun at his side, is the first real sign we're crossing into a parallel reality. Honduran law mostly ceases at the barrier gate. Beyond it, Próspera can make its own laws.
The guard checks that visitors have filled out the "agreement of co-existence", an online form binding them to the zone's system of private arbitration. Apart from criminal matters, cases are heard online by an Arizona-based panel of retired judges.
The Beta District, Próspera's main campus, is a sloping 58-acre plot fringed by palm trees and overlooking the Caribbean Sea. Calling it a "city" is generous, but there are plans to change that. For now, there's a a handful of buildings: a hostel, a robotic woodworking factory, and a futuristic-looking white dome giving off Fyre Festival vibes. There's a small shop where everything's bought with Bitcoin, the zone's preferred currency. Towering over all is Duna Residences, a gleaming 14-storey residential tower.
Closer to the beach, there's a restaurant and office complex, where we meet Erick Brimen, the Venezuelan-born former banker who founded Próspera in 2017.
"Really the whole thing started here, in this particular building," he says, sitting in a boardroom taking in views of the coral reef just offshore. "This was jungle before."
Próspera was created with the blessing of the Honduran government, after it legalised special jurisdictions known as ZEDEs — a Spanish acronym for Zones for Employment and Economic Development. Political instability and government corruption have long made Honduras toxic for foreign investment. The ZEDEs were meant to be the antidote.
Brimen describes them as "pockets of stability" designed to lure foreign investors. Próspera's low tax rates are one of the big drawcards, with businesses paying as little as 1 per cent.
It's a formula he claims has already attracted 500 companies to the zone and created thousands of jobs.
"It's a poverty alleviation tool and an economic accelerant," Brimen says. "What we're doing here, I think, can lift people up from around the world by the billions."
Honduras first got the idea for the zones from a TED Talk. In a 2009 YouTube video, Paul Romer, who went on to become Chief Economist of the World Bank, argued "charter cities" run by stable foreign governments — think Canada or Norway — could help lift developing nations out of poverty.
But the model Honduras went on to adopt bore little resemblance to Romer's vision, allowing foreign companies to run the zones with an extraordinary degree of autonomy.
Próspera has the power to create its own legal system, courts, police force, tax code and regulations — even set its own building code. Duna tower would have been illegal to build anywhere else on the island.
"The zoning outside caps you at 12 storeys," says Brimen, as we scale the steps at the base of the tower. "And indeed, those extra storeys were authorised through the internal approval process."
The fight to shut it down
Some critics have denounced Próspera as a "state within a state". Fernando Garcia, a former minister for the economy in the left-wing Libre party, says it undermines Honduras's national sovereignty.
"It's totally affected," he says. "A state has three components: government, population and territory. All three are affected by Próspera. The libertarians want the states of the world in their current form to disappear."
He also disputes the idea Próspera is generating wealth for Hondurans. Even by Próspera's own reckoning, only about 30 companies are physically present in the zone, a fact Garcia seizes on.
"What [the companies] do is turn Próspera into a tax haven for tax evasion in their countries of origin," he says. "They don't live there or generate any activity there. They generate it in their countries of origin."
Erick Brimen dismisses the suggestion the city is doing anything wrong.
"In Próspera, there are taxes and people must pay them, and there are regulations and people must follow them," he says.
Próspera pays 12 per cent of the taxes and fees it collects to the Honduran government, and Brimen says there's evidence it's already bringing in new investment.
In 2022, Fernando Garcia was brought in by the leftist government of Xiomara Castro to shut Próspera down. The government set about repealing the laws that made the ZEDEs legal.
In response, Próspera launched legal action against the state of Honduras for $US10.7 billion — roughly a third of GDP — in a move Garcia says was akin to "blackmail". Ultimately, his effort to rid the country of its ZEDEs was a lost cause.
Libre was turfed out of office in national elections last December, which saw the right-wing Nationals returned to power — the party that ushered Próspera into existence in the first place.
That election, decided on a margin of just 1 per cent, remains a source of much contention in Honduras. Garcia claims it was "stolen" by a man with a renewed interest in the Western hemisphere, and a desire to "consolidate the position of libertarians in Honduras" — Donald Trump.
The US president made an extraordinary intervention in the fiercely contested poll, publicly backing the National Party and pardoning its jailed former leader, Juan Orlando Hernandez, days before Hondurans cast their ballots. Those actions are widely seen as having tipped the scales for his preferred party to win.
Some say safeguarding the future of Próspera might have had something to do with it. Trump had been publicly and privately lobbied by his long-time adviser Roger Stone, who penned a blog post urging the president to pardon Hernandez in order to "crush socialism" and "save" the "freedom city".
One of the world's foremost experts on Central America, Chris Sabatini, believes Stone was doing the bidding of a group of libertarian tech bros.
"They're an emerging, very powerful bloc of political activists that are basically funded to the teeth and are willing to step out and start to push their own agenda," he says.
Brimen is coy about the president's intervention, merely saying that Trump was trying to make the region more "stable and prosperous" and that the development deserved the support it received.
Regardless of the president's knowledge of or support for Próspera, Sabatini says his actions have "basically guaranteed that Próspera will remain … as long as Donald Trump is in the White House".
A city of the future
Expansion is now the goal. From the pool deck on Duna tower, Brimen points over a nearby hill towards Pristine Bay, a sprawling resort and golf course that's been incorporated into the zone.
ZEDEs can add territories and they don't even need to be connected, and, according to Brimen, Próspera is a patchwork of some 1,000 acres, including a port on the Honduran mainland at La Ceiba, with a total area larger than Monaco.
In time, he believes the population could reach 100,000.
"If you think, in 20, 30 years' time, it's very feasible," Brimen says.
For now though, it's eerily quiet. Próspera claims 1,700 people have filled out an online residency form, but only about 200 people actually live here permanently. One of them is Rich Lee, who's among the 45 or so permanent residents in Duna tower.
He moved here from the US about two years ago, after a death in the family caused him to reconsider things.
"There were a lot of people here and it was really happening," Lee says. "There was a lot of really awesome projects, bleeding-edge stuff.
"I thought, 'This is what I need' — you know, 'I'm kind of starved for this right now.' So I moved out here."
Lee came to turn his biohacking hobby into a start-up business. Standing in the Maker Space, he shows off his implants, of which there are seven in total, including a chunky tap-to-pay credit card chip under the skin in the back of his right hand.
He has Bluetooth headphones permanently implanted and magnets in his fingertips to "touch an otherwise invisible world of electro-magnetic fields".
It's also a handy pub trick. "Honestly, this has got me so much free beer," Lee says, dangling a bottle cap from the tip of his finger.
In the US, body modification tech is a legal grey area, Lee says, and unlikely to attract the hefty financial backing needed to pass FDA approvals. He believes the US system of regulation is broken.
"The idea that regulation in the US is making things safer, I think, is kind of a fallacy. Currently it takes about a billion dollars to bring a pharmaceutical or, like, a gene therapy, to market, and about 10 years," Lee says.
"So we're at this weird place where we've painted ourselves into the corner with regulations in a lot of cases."
Lee isn't the only biohacker to find his way to Próspera. This is where the ultra-wealthy longevity guru Bryan Johnson came to receive an unregulated gene therapy for the 2025 Netflix documentary Don't Die.
Medical experimentation has become one of the zone's hallmarks. But billionaire celebrities are a rarity, according to Lee.
"I think there's this fantasy that it's this inaccessible place for elites that are, you know, doing crazy experiments on this anarchist island. But we're just people out here and we're definitely not billionaires," he says.
Later that evening, a handful of residents gather in the Maker Space for a weekly games night. Many believe Próspera's doing good for the island.
"Most people don't come here to do anything except laze around and build a nice house and buy a boat," says Jason, another resident biohacker.
"But when you start to talk to people about, we're pushing forward science, we're going to put in regenerative medicine, ears start perking up."
An island of opposition
Not all the locals agree. Just along the beach from Próspera is the old fishing village of Crawfish Rock, which gets its name from the spiny lobster that once flourished here. It's an English-speaking community of about 600, tracing its roots back to British colonial days. People here are split over the private city next door.
Vanessa Cardenas, a community leader whose family has lived here for five generations, is one of its most vocal critics.
"No-one ever expected this kind of situation to ever occur," she says.
"For them to come and say they want to build a country in my country, where they have their own laws, regulations, their everything — they don't pay the taxes I pay and I'm from here. It's preposterous. I mean, it makes no sense."
Cardenas acknowledges that Próspera has provided jobs for the community, but says that has deepened divisions.
"There's a lack of trust now," she says. "Because if you're working with them, you're getting a salary, so they're good to you. But then there's us, we're seeing the danger. I can't trust you or talk with you about certain things, so it has caused some division."
Cardenas worries about a return to the village's colonial past.
"Our country has ever been explored and our riches taken for somewhere else. It has never stayed for the Honduran people," she says.
That's a charge Erick Brimen rejects.
"It's the opposite," he says.
"It's a government choosing to liberate its people from the shackles of poor regulatory and legal environments by partnering voluntarily with partners that are capable to provide better conditions. So colonialism is exactly the opposite of what we're doing."
Exporting the movement
Back in Próspera, there's a broad gash in the green hillside behind Duna tower where the next big residential development is taking shape. The tangled jungle has been hacked back to make way for five squat, European-style apartment buildings.
"I've been looking into building a similar thing in Portugal," says Ivan Syrtsov, the young Ukrainian who's developing the site.
"Permit-wise, it would take me approximately four years. Over here, it's two weeks."
