A bit of appreciation for cryptography, it's history and early cypherpunks.

Amidst all the HODL posts I would like to remind you about some shards of recent history that inspired creation of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

I'm a senior software engineer and cypherpunk. There is nothing wrong with holding crypto for gains, but I'm also fascinated by it's background, ideas and possibilities it brings. You don't need to support crypto-anarchists' ideas as you are free to disagree, that's the point. However it's hard to argue that creation of public-key encryption was one of the most important events for crypto.

Despite what some of you are hoping for, it is unlikely that crypto will kill banks, governments will fall and system will collapse because of it.

However cryptography in general and digital currency in particular gives people _opportunity_ to experience privacy, transparency, control of their finances. Which is _not_ achieved with tyranny of the majority, force or violence, but with _mathematics_. And this, in my opinion, is a beautiful thing.

Some 30 years later, it is quite interesting to get familiar with some of the origins. Some things that inspired Satoshi. So next time you decide to panic-sell you crypto, may be consider thinking about where it began and why it was created.

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For more specific original ideas, please search for full version of Cyphernomicon

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Tim May, 1992

A specter is haunting the modern world, the specter of crypto anarchy.

Computer technology is on the verge of providing the ability for individuals and groups to communicate and interact with each other in a totally anonymous manner. Two persons may exchange messages, conduct business, and negotiate electronic contracts without ever knowing the True Name, or legal identity, of the other. Interactions over networks will be untraceable, via extensive re- routing of encrypted packets and tamper-proof boxes which implement cryptographic protocols with nearly perfect assurance against any tampering. Reputations will be of central importance, far more important in dealings than even the credit ratings of today. These developments will alter completely the nature of government regulation, the ability to tax and control economic interactions, the ability to keep information secret, and will even alter the nature of trust and reputation.

The technology for this revolution--and it surely will be both a social and economic revolution--has existed in theory for the past decade. The methods are based upon public-key encryption, zero-knowledge interactive proof systems, and various software protocols for interaction, authentication, and verification. The focus has until now been on academic conferences in Europe and the U.S., conferences monitored closely by the National Security Agency. But only recently have computer networks and personal computers attained sufficient speed to make the ideas practically realizable. And the next ten years will bring enough additional speed to make the ideas economically feasible and essentially unstoppable. High-speed networks, ISDN, tamper-proof boxes, smart cards, satellites, Ku-band transmitters, multi-MIPS personal computers, and encryption chips now under development will be some of the enabling technologies.

The State will of course try to slow or halt the spread of this technology, citing national security concerns, use of the technology by drug dealers and tax evaders, and fears of societal disintegration. Many of these concerns will be valid; crypto anarchy will allow national secrets to be trade freely and will allow illicit and stolen materials to be traded. An anonymous computerized market will even make possible abhorrent markets for assassinations and extortion. Various criminal and foreign elements will be active users of CryptoNet. But this will not halt the spread of crypto anarchy.

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. And just as a seemingly minor invention like barbed wire made possible the fencing-off of vast ranches and farms, thus altering forever the concepts of land and property rights in the frontier West, so too will the seemingly minor discovery out of an arcane branch of mathematics come to be the wire clippers which dismantle the barbed wire around intellectual property.

Arise, you have nothing to lose but your barbed wire fences!

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The resources on general cryptography are vast. I hope I woke up some interest in you to go and educate yourself a bit on it's history and modern applications. Even reading a fiction like Cryptonomicon will help you appreciate what you are hodling )

Kind Regards

- wintermute -