💡 Fun fact: The Blacksky community offers people to use ".cryptoanarchy.network" domain as their handle. Which is very unfortunate given that their community is heavily pro-censorship and employs discriminatory blocking practices – contradicting the core values of cryptoanarchy.

Read the full manifesto (it's short!):

📄 Original text: groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/...

📄 Timothy May @ Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy...

📄 Crypto-anarchy @ Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-...

8/ Cryptoanarchy was heavily studied and propagated by Prague's Parallel Polis (2014-2024) through their "Institute of Cryptoanarchy". They brought May's vision to life – hosted the annual Hacker Congress, running BTC-only café, and providing free education on privacy tools and decentralized tech.

7/ Today's manifestations: Bitcoin, Monero, Tor, Signal, WikiLeaks and many others. These tools embody cryptoanarchist principles. However, May (who passed in 2018) was critical of crypto's direction, saying compliance efforts and KYC/AML rules betray the movement. "I think Satoshi would barf."

6/ The vision relied on public-key encryption, zero-knowledge proofs, and protocols for anonymous interaction. May acknowledged governments would resist, citing "drug dealers and tax evaders". His response? "But this will not halt the spread of crypto anarchy."

5/ This led to the Cypherpunks movement (1992). Founded by May, Eric Hughes, and Hugh Daniel, it became "perhaps the single most effective pro-cryptography grassroots organization in history". Members included a young Julian Assange. Their motto: "Cypherpunks write code"

4/ May wrote: "Just as printing altered the power of medieval guilds, cryptologic methods will fundamentally alter the nature of corporations and government interference in economic transactions". Mathematics becomes "the wire clippers which dismantle the barbed wire around intellectual property".

3/ The core idea: Two people can exchange messages, conduct business, and negotiate contracts without ever knowing each other's "True Name" or legal identity. Interactions over networks would be untraceable through encrypted routing. Reputation becomes everything.

2/ It all started with Timothy C. May's "Crypto Anarchist Manifesto" in 1988. Opening line: "A specter is haunting the modern world, the specter of crypto anarchy." May predicted anonymous digital communications and currencies would fundamentally challenge government power.

@mackuba.eu @goose.art @timburga.com @thisismissem.social @indexx.dev @aeshna-cyanea.neocities.org @madebydanny.uk @j4ck.xyz @angrydutchman.peedee.es

8/ The tools exist. The question isn't capability—it's adoption.

Stop asking platforms to secure their honeypots.
Start building protocols that can't create them.

Don't lobby. Build.

7/ The regulated internet will become the regulated financial system: surveillance dressed as safety.

Or we build the alternative.

Protocols, not platforms.
Cryptographic proof, not document collection.
Tools that serve users, not control them.

6/ This is the cypherpunk thesis:

You can't have privacy with centralized control.

Every checkpoint accumulates power. Every database becomes a breach. Every "protection" becomes a weapon.

5/ The technology to do this properly exists:

✅ ZK-proofs for age without documents
✅ DIDs instead of centralized databases
✅ Protocols (Matrix, Nostr, AT Protocol) not platforms
✅ Cryptographic attestation not uploads

The problem isn't technical—it's mandates requiring wrong architecture.

4/ You can't secure what shouldn't exist.

Every "reasonable" regulation creates identity honeypots. Every platform becomes a target. Every support system becomes a vulnerability.

Good security requires data minimization. Regulations mandate data maximization.

3/ Now age verification mandates are doing the same to social networks.

Platforms forced to collect & store government IDs. Centralized databases at scale. The breach was inevitable—regulatory mandates created a 1.5TB honeypot.

2/ Financial KYC turned banks into surveillance nodes. "Prevent terrorism" became: scan your passport, store your biometrics, report your transactions.

Result: constant breaches, mass surveillance, financial exclusion.