Our 40 year cryptoanarchy movement
The “Cryptoanarchy Manifesto” and why we fight for it.
Bitcoin has become synonymous with freedom and digital liberty. It has catalyzed a new generation of cypherpunks and freedom fighters. A rebel group of idealists, believers, and dreamers who see cryptocurrency as a means of how we achieve greater digital liberty and democracy in an unjust and oligarchic world.
This movement began through the work of Martin Hellman and Whitfield Diffie who believed that everyone had the right to access and use strong cryptography. Along with Ralph Merkle, they released the research of public key to break the government’s monopoly on cutting edge cryptographic research. Their work would spark the first modern wave of public interest into the study and research of cryptography.
Those involved in this new wave such as David Chaum would ideologically seed the movement in the 90s known as the cypherpunks. These cypherpunks fought governmental injustices of digital rights including the right to privacy including the freedom of software and cryptography.
“ Just as the technology of printing altered and reduced the power of medieval guilds and the social power structure, so too will cryptologic methods fundamentally alter the nature of corporations and of government interference in economic transactions. Combined with emerging information markets, crypto anarchy will create a liquid market for any and all material which can be put into words and pictures.”
By Timothy C. May in the Cryptoanarchy Manifesto (1978)
The very same crowd would also implement and release onion routing and bit torrenting to the public, enabling the existence of an unstoppable deep web. At Tenzorum, we believe that financial liberty is the next age of cryptoanarchy. Cryptocurrencies and decentralized applications will dawn a self governed economic system.
We see a future of a global cryptoeconomy which will eventually lead to the separation of the state and the control of money. Current governmental power to regulate and tax derives from their surveillance and authority over economic bottlenecks such as the bank. But through the distributed resilience of blockchains and p2p technologies, the impending cryptoeconomy be on that will be unable to be censored, legally pressured and in the future, totally anonymous. This shift will redefine the role of governments in our lives and change how our economy functions.While potentially yet to fully comprehend the change that will come, it will be an inevitable one, but also an necessary one. Phil Zimmerman the author of PGP 1.0 didn’t miss several mortgages in trying to ship product for nothing. He believe the release of PGP was necessary for a free world. Cypherpunks code, design and build.
The world is changed and built on top of dreams. If no one believed, then we would forever wallow in our mediocre existence. In the end, most of us who are in the cryptocurrency space are believers and dreamers. We are people who can’t resist the rush of pursuing what we believe in. It is the core of who we are. For being human to chase happiness and what could be a better mission that it is to fight for us and for everyone. In the end, life too short to fight for anything less.
“It has taken all of us to build the web we have, and now it is up to all of us to build the web we want — for everyone.” — Tim Berners Lee
But where do you begin?
For developers
If you are a developer who is looking to join the space, I recommend you checkout: Giveth’s Social Coding group. Giveth is building transparent charity management software on Ethereum and one of their initiatives is to provide a forum for open source projects to connect with developers who are looking to work on something that gives back to the community. Jump into the social coding chat and introduce yourself :)
Join the social coding chat:
https://riot.im/app/#/room/#giveth-social-coding:matrix.org
For designers
If you are a designer who is looking to join the space, come swing by our Web3 Design forum and introduce yourself in the intros thread. We are always working on open ecosystem ux/product initiatives and always welcome an extra hand!
Introduce yourself here:
http://discuss.conflux.network/t/conflux-introductions/15
Other projects to get involved with…
Aragon Monthly: https://monthly.aragon.org/
Ethereum Magicians: https://ethereum-magicians.org/
Bounties: https://bounties.network/
If none of the above appeal to you, feel free to message me on twitter. Always up for a chat to see what you can get involved with! + Always love to meet interesting people on the internet :-) @pet3rpan
