Re: PROPOSAL: Incorporate the Veres One Non-Profit Foundation

> I personally lean toward EU based — Germany has strong human-rights privacy record, GDPR is a powerful message, and Estonia certainly has been taking a leadership role in digital identity.

Germany has reasonable high courts, but it is difficult to praise the legislature or executive. Recent counterexample: https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2018/hausdurchsuchungen-bei-vereinsvorstanden-der-zwiebelfreunde-und-im-openlab-augsburg <https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2018/hausdurchsuchungen-bei-vereinsvorstanden-der-zwiebelfreunde-und-im-openlab-augsburg>
There are several forms to incorporate charitable organizations, the most popular of which is a charitable registered club (gemeinnütziger eingetragener Verein). Three examples are mentioned in the press release above: Zwiebelfreunde, OpenLab, and Chaos Computer Club. Basically, you need 7 people and about 100 EUR to found one.
Foundations (Stiftung) are usually chosen, if you already have capital, that you want to dedicate to some cause. I don’t have experience with foundations, but it looks like there is no fixed capital requirement. It has to be enough to ensure sustainable operation. Example related to Chaos Computer Club and Zwiebelfreunde: https://www.wauland.de/en/about.html <https://www.wauland.de/en/about.html>

Personally, Estonia sounds like a better choice to me.

Another possibility may be Iceland, which is not part of the EU, but part of the European Economic Area. When I had a look at that a couple of years ago, that was considered to be equivalent to EU members in respect to privacy regulations by other EU member states. In my book, not being part of the EU is an advantage in the digital sector. Privacy and freedom have been endangered for a couple of years by attempts to save publishers or public safety.

It takes about 10k USD to establish an Icelandic foundation and can apparently be formed entirely by foreigners. Reasons to think, that Iceland is on a good track can be found on https://en.immi.is/ <https://en.immi.is/>