Aleksandar Svetski wasn’t just hunting for coffee in El Salvador—he was hunting for the future. In 2019, as Google Maps led him and his wife to yet another overrated café, a lightning bolt struck: What if discovery wasn’t about anonymous crowds, but trusted tribes? That moment birthed Satlantis—a social atlas for the sovereign age.
The platform ditches stale reviews and algorithmic noise to rebuild travel around your social graph. Imagine Atlantis rising from digital chaos: a place where bitcoiners, nomads, and community seekers navigate not by stars, but by shared values.
This is #Satlantis. 😎🌴 pic.twitter.com/VT73BEQ8wR
— Satlantis: People, Places & Events (@JoinSatlantis) June 17, 2024
The Genesis
- What personal frustration or travel moment made you think, “The world needs Satlantis”?
I actually remember the moment very well. My wife and I were in El Salvador for the Adopting Bitcoin Conference in 2019, just looking for a place for coffee. Not knowing the city we did what millions of people do every day, all the time: look on Google Maps.
We found three places with great reviews… and they all sucked. The one place that did have great coffee had relatively low ratings by comparison, but was recommended to us by a good friend.
That’s when it hit me. I saw clearly what Google, Tripadvisor and others were missing: I don’t care about random reviews from people I don’t know; I also don’t want to see every single place on the map. I want to discover places relevant to me, and recommended by my friends or people I trust.
That’s when I knew I had to build this – not just for the world, but because this is the product I wish existed.
- How is Satlantis fundamentally different from existing travel apps or nomad forums?
Part is what I’ve said already, but it goes well beyond.
Google Maps, Yelp and Tripadvisor are about reviews, but those are stale, impersonal and often fake or irrelevant. Then you have NomadList, a directory full of info, but static and outdated.
Satlantis bridges the gap between the content creation and lifestyle sharing aspects of Instagram, and the utility of map and review apps. It makes all of these travel features relevant by personalizing them with your social graph.
- Why “Satlantis”? What does the lost city represent for your community?
“Satlantis” is a metaphor for discovery and belonging in a digital age.
Atlantis is the mythical place, people and event we all know of in our blood-memory and Satlantis helps you find people, places and events. The extra “S” stands for Sovereign, Social and, of course, Satoshi.
Founder’s Journey
- What idea did you love but had to kill? Why?
Hands down, it was the idea of being a Nostr client. We loved the thought of being 100% Nostr-native from day one, events included. But reality hit hard.
The reality is protocols take time to become standardized, and Nostr is simply not there yet. We can’t just sit around and wait for it to be ready. So we made the tough call: our aim is to be “As Nostr As Possible” (ANAP), which means that if we can integrate a Nostr feature we’ll always do it… as long as it benefits the final product.
The best example is Nostr as an identity layer for the web. That’s a key component of the Satlantis experience, but it doesn’t mean we have to adopt every single Nostr standard.
- What did a user teach you about travel that shattered your assumptions?
Early on, we assumed travelers were mainly looking for cool places to go: the best cafés, top-rated co-working spots, trending events… So we initially set out to build a more modern nomad directory like NomadList.
But after speaking to many, many travelers and nomads, what we found is that people don’t really care about statistics and scores: they want community. They’re interested in people, places and events.
So we’re leading with that and you’ll see the product evolve more in that direction.
Building a Borderless Community
- How do you foster genuine connections among people who never stay put?
We start by asking you what you’re interested in. From ideas to hobbies, food to experiences. These interests then shape your feed, the places you discover and the events suggested to you.
We then layer your social graph on top, so that the activity from the people you’re connected to also affects what you discover and so that you can find and connect with new people who share similar values.
- What’s one user experience you’ve created that only works for location-independent lifestyles?
Our standout feature right now is definitely merchant discoverability based on your interests and social graph. It’s so much more useful than Google Maps, Tripadvisor or Yelp, because it’s tailored to you and shows you what your friends recommend – which is how you discover new places and things to do in real life.
And this is about to get much more powerful with curated collections, coming in early August.
- How do you balance authentic storytelling vs. influencer tourism?
It’s really not our place to dictate or moralize about the content our users choose to post. That being said… I think most of what’s broken about social apps is that they’ve become top-down, algorithmically-driven media.
If we’re right about the importance of genuine connection, and if we nail what we’re trying to do with Satlantis, you’ll see much healthier content on there, because it comes from your social network.
Philosophy & Ethics
- Can a social network replace “home” for perpetual travelers? How does Satlantis try?
That’s a tough one. There’s a time for travel and there’s a time for home, or at least that’s what I think at this stage in my life. We’re definitely not trying to ‘replace’ home, but we do want people to feel more at home wherever they travel to around the world. And I believe we’ll achieve that through the social aspect of Satlantis.
- How do you prevent the platform from becoming a tool for gentrification or voyeurism?
Look, the problem with current social media is precisely that they’re media – top-down fed algorithmic slop that brings out the worst in people. As I’ve said, we want to go back to social networks. I think our vision will attract the right kind of people, genuine creators and community leaders, and promote healthy interaction and connection.
- How will you profit without selling user data or cluttering the experience?
Simple: Memberships & Promoted content.
We’re confident that we’re filling a big gap in the market and that people will get a lot of value out of the app. It’s free to use and will remain so, but we’ll start implementing paid memberships that will grant access to more powerful tools for curators, creators, community managers and the like.
In addition we’ll also introduce the ability to promote content, whether that’s a location on the map or an event. We have both a map and a feed, and they are ideal places to amplify your message.
Technical & Human Challenges
- What’s the hardest tech challenge in connecting people spontaneously across time zones?
The trickiest tech aspect and the one we’re spending more time on is to get personalization and recommendations just right. There’s many moving parts, and irrelevant or forced recommendations will be a deal breaker for many users.
Part of this is solved from the onboarding process, where users actively select their interests. But then we have to connect those interests to destinations, merchants and venues, events, accounts, etc. so we can present the user with a feed that feels compelling, attractive and – most importantly – very relevant.
We’re still very early, but that’s one aspect that definitely keeps me up at night.
- How do you verify places/events to protect users from scams or danger?
Right now we have a cool little group of Ambassadors in our featured destinations who are taking the lead in populating their city with cool places, merchants, venues, etc.
As we scale, our vision is that community leaders will grow organically and build credibility and reputation by making the most of the app. They will become the main nodes in these microcommunities – the sort of people you get in touch with when you first arrive in town.
At Satlantis we believe that the best defence against scammers and malicious actors is trusted relationships, and everything we do is aimed at fostering that kind of bond.
- How do you make Satlantis intuitive for a 60-year-old retiree and a 25-year-old bitcoin-nomad?
The somewhat harsh answer is that Satlantis is not for everyone. We’re not trying to attract just anyone, but very specific demographics interested in sovereignty and building microcommunities and tribes.
So while we want onboarding to be as smooth and personalized as possible, we won’t compromise on the experience for our target audience to cater to just about anyone. We have specific demographics in mind and that’s who we’re building Satlantis for.
The Future
- If you could partner with one company (e.g., Airbnb, Visa, StarLink), who and why?
Partnering with Airbnb would certainly be a dream integration for Satlantis, because we both want to enable authentic, personalized travel experiences, although AirBnB is more about stays and experiences, while we’re more about events and places, with a social component.
Imagine opening the Satlantis app and not only seeing what’s nearby that fits your vibe, but also booking a stay that complements your experience, all in one place.
- Will Satlantis ever host IRL events or co-living spaces?
Absolutely. In fact, we already have done a few small events.
In the coming 12-24 months we want to host a “Satlantis Summit” where we bring together people from different communities including bitcoiners, Network States, Free Private Cities, Remote Workers, Nomads, Geo Arbiters and Longevity / Biohackers. Stay tuned.
- How do you respond to the remarks: “Another social app will just make people lonelier”?
It’s no coincidence that social media users are becoming lonelier: the social app ecosystem is broken. It’s in the name: social media.
Satlantis seeks to return to the era of social networks, where what mattered was your circle and how you interacted and connected with them. It’s meant to be a digital tool to help connect in the real world, not a digital replacement for the real world – which is what social media apps have become.
- How can the global bitcoin community support your mission?
Something I constantly speak about and I’m not sure bitcoiners really realize is the amount of power we’re going to be wielding in the near future. They will be the capital holders and allocators of the world very soon, and when they are they will be asking themselves the question: “What can I now DO with my bitcoin??”
Well – doing is living, and Satlantis is the place where they will be able to discover the best things in life; from people, to places, to events.
