Such a populist vision may seem surprising coming from a former venture capitalist who descends from a good ‘ol boy lineage of concentrated capital – the sort of capital that is accumulated over generations with the help of state-enforced regulatory and legal barriers designed to favor the elite at the expense of the general public. As a former beneficiary of the very system he now seeks to replace, he stands as an odd figure to lead a populist financial revolution.

Given that bitcoin is a tool designed to empower the 99% and has the ability to destruct the very system of state and legal privileges that currently produce and protect Mr. Byrne’s wealth, it seems strange that he advocates the construction of a new system that would level him onto the same economic playing field as the rest of us. Yet despite this apparent philosophical discrepancy within his vision, Mr. Byrne wears an aura of Messianic servitude as he goes about his new-found destiny as the unlikely leader of a Rebel Alliance against the evil empire of Wall Street.

Confidence aside, Byrne himself actually has no idea how a stateless crypto-equity system might actually work in real life. And so he’s boldly enlisting the help of the public to fill in the blanks for him, asking anyone with ideas to contribute them freely to an open-edit wiki page that immediately greets the viewer with Overstock’s trademarked red and white logo along the header space. While looking through this wiki, my first thought was “what motivates so many people to do all of this hard work for free on behalf of a brand that belongs to an enormously wealthy individual?” An individual, no less, who isn’t likely to financially reimburse the efforts of all these anonymous volunteers who are not only giving him free brand advertising, but writing what may ultimately become the corporate charter of whatever next financial scheme he has in mind.

If Mr. Byrne’s worker bees will pause for a moment to examine the fine print in the Terms & Conditions portion of O.info(TM), they will notice that although the content they create for the website falls under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, the content may nonetheless “be protected by other intellectual property rights such as trademarks.” And O.info(TM) is clearly a trademark. Additionally, the contract states that as a condition of meeting the CC ShareAlike requirements, any and all use of the wiki’s content must be attributed as the creative work of Overstock.com and preferably provide a link back to the Overstock-branded wiki page. Not only are the wiki’s content creators providing free advertising for Overstock, but additionally they’re forfeiting credit for any of the work they’ve done or content they’ve produced on Overstock’s wiki. Additionally, just like any other fineprint contract, the agreement comes with the condition that “Overstock may modify these Terms at any time.”

I want to make it really clear that I’m not intending to paint Mr. Bryne in a villainous light. Not only is he one of today’s most-respected business minds, but he’s also contributed much of his own free time and energy to bring the Bitcoin movement forward into mainstream acceptance. I have no doubt that he has good intentions. And as far as weaving the project into his corporate branding, he is merely pursuing his own self-interest, as any rational individual should. What bothers me is not Mr. Bryne or his company, but how the mostly-libertarian authors of his wiki page have seemingly forgotten how to look after their own self-interests.

And as for those who believe that the promotion of Bitcoin as a concept and moral philosophy is even more important than the pursuit of self-interest, then it’s all the more important for them to question the motives behind the powerful companies and individuals that would attempt to shape its future. A healthy dose of skepticism is needed in such high stakes situations. When the elites of any particular system become aware of a potentially serious threat to their continued dominance, they generally have two options: either fight against the threat or co-opt and absorb it. Threatened by the growing popularity of stateless currency, the current financial elites are desperate to retain their state-subsidized market dominance by co-opting the movement that would flood the market with newer and better competitors.

As a bitcoin enthusiast myself who believes in the revolutionary potential of the bitcoin economy, I can understand the initial eagerness to volunteer for free in any project that promotes Bitcoin both as a currency and an idea. But one also has to remain wary of opportunists and consider the larger picture and long-term future of cryptocurrency that is at stake. What needs to be realized is that if we allow the current financial elites to keep the ball in their court, we’re helping to build a new system that remains tilted in their favor, one that preserves the current balance of power and does nothing to remove the state-sanctioned economic advantages that privilege a few at the expense of all others. Though Overstock is only one example among many, it’s symbolic of all fortunes built upon the inequities of the old system. Besides which, is it really a good idea to give the Mr. Byrnes of the world a head start advantage over the rest of us when we could be cultivating that advantage for ourselves?

As any good libertarian should know, if you’ve decided that you’re going to work for free, at least work as part of a public project for the greater good rather than for the narrow interests of a particular individual or for-profit entity. One such entity that first came to mind is the Bitcoin Foundation. But upon closer inspection, I found that its board of directors has been infiltrated with old school (read: pre-Bitcoin era) venture capitalists who are circling the territory like vultures. And in fact, the traditional VC industry is so interwoven with the Bitcoin community that it deserves its own separate article. But for purposes of wrapping up this first article, I’d like to promote the idea of using an already-existing bitcoin wiki that has no centralized leadership and no gatekeepers and is a natural fit for the type of agenda Byrne claims to pursue. Another possibility is that a stock exchange could even be built directly into the blockchain infrastructure itself. But regardless of what’s possible, what matters is that the platform itself does not come to represent the agenda of any particular brand or interest group, but rather the agenda of Bitcoin as a concept and a community.

As a free market anarchist, I’d personally prefer to see these cryptocurrency stock markets emerge spontaneously from the market in a decentralized manner. And while many will argue that Byrne’s approach evolved spontaneously through the market, it did not evolve through a free market, because capitalism is not a free market. If the stock market is fated to reinvent itself one way or another, does the Bitcoin community really prefer to have any specific person singlehandedly spearhead the project and claim it as his own? Or would they rather spearhead it collectively in the decentralized spirit of a community that values leaderless markets?

Il suddetto “gruppo d’affari”, la Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, ha già coinvolto l’ex direttore della Nsa Keith Alexander e una società guidata dall’ex capo della Sicurezza Nazionale Michael Chertoff per “facilitare” la realizzazione del progetto.

La banda c’è tutta! Lo stato, ex lacchè di stato, banchieri… ma manca qualcuno. Chi sarà? Ah, è vero, siete voi! Ma non preoccupatevi. C’è un ruolo anche per voi. Tanto per iniziare, vi tocca il conto.

Quando Alexander scoprì che il suo servizio di sicurezza, offerto tramite la sua società di “consulenza” IronNet Cybersecurity, Inc. al prezzo di un milione al mese, non era un gran successo, decise di spolverare la vecchia fregatura della “società pubblico-privato”: chiudi in un serraglio i “clienti” che non hanno voglia di pagare e fai entrare lo stato, che poi passa il conto ai cittadini sotto forma di tasse.

Una “società pubblico-privato”, anche banale, è sempre una pessima idea. La parte “pubblica” si occupa del pagamento (vostro) dei costi. La parte “privata” si occupa dei benefici (i loro). In caso di fallimento, stato e socio “privato” dividono le colpe. Non nel senso che se le dividono tra loro, ma nel senso che se le rimpallano a vicenda fino allo sfinimento, finché tutti si dimenticano cosa è successo e loro possono tornare a frugare nel vostro portafogli.

Ovviamente né “pubblico” né “privato” significano quel che sembrano. La parte “privata” è formata da persone come Alexander, Chertoff e i loro amici banchieri senza volto: non più, o non ancora, tecnicamente alle dipendenze del governo, ma saldamente attaccati alla mammella. La parte “pubblica” è formata da burocrati governativi ansiosi di intraprendere una simile carriera in futuro. Le due parti sono collegate tramite una porta girevole. Se è difficile da vedere è perché gira molto rapidamente (sentite il sibilo?). Voi sborsate i soldi e per il resto non sono affari vostri.

Questa particolare “società”, però, è ben lungi dall’essere banale. Come faccio a dirlo? Semplice: c’è la parola “guerra”.

Le guerre hanno parti. Le guerre hanno nemici.

Non mi credete? Chiedetelo a Bounkham “Bou Bou” Phonesavanh, che è appena tornato dall’ospedale dopo che arditi (“pubblici”) guerrieri antidroga hanno lanciato una granata stordente nel suo box durante un raid. Forse avete sentito la storia nei notiziari della sera, infilata tra uno spot e l’altro della “pubblicità progresso” che pubblicizza la (“privata”) Associazione per una America Senza Droga. Questo è ciò che vi è dato sapere della lotta alla droga.

L’obiettivo di questo sforzo bellico “pubblico-privato” è la riparazione del muro eretto tanto tempo fa (dagli stessi attori “pubblici” e “privati” di oggi) attorno ai servizi bancari, finanziari e di pagamento.

Il suo nemico è il far west dei mercati e i loro clienti (compresi voi). Pensate a Bitcoin. Pensate a Uber e Lyft.

Questi mercati operano (a volte di fatto, altre potenzialmente) fuori dalla rete di normative di stato messa su per offrire fette di mercato, come i monopoli, a quelli che hanno amicizie politiche. Sono sempre esistiti (pensate al baratto, alla moneta spontanea, ai minibus e i taxi abusivi), ma oggi stanno spuntando come funghi. Alimentati dall’accesso diffuso ad internet e dalla disponibilità di forti tecnologie crittografiche, rappresentano un pericolo crescente non solo per alcuni particolarimonopolisti, ma per l’intero sistema statale di controllo che garantisce loro il monopolio.

È già in corso il dispiegamento della propaganda giustificativa che alla fine culminerà in qualche “standard di sicurezza” accompagnato da “azioni energiche o preventive”. Forse non è un caso se la notizia di questa proposta da parte dei media segue immediatamente la notizia di un articolo di un blog, presumibilmente legato al gruppo Isis, in cui si parla dell’uso di Bitcoin per “diffondere la jihad”. Non mi sorprenderei se dovessi sapere che gli autori di quell’articolo e gli addetti stampa del “consiglio di guerra cibernetica” condividono lo stesso ufficio al Pentagono… o perlomeno sono in contatto telefonico.

La cattiva notizia è che probabilmente non potete fare nulla per evitare questo “consiglio di guerra” o i suoi piani bellici.

La buona notizia è che potete vincere questa guerra. Tutto quello che dovete fare è capire che avete bisogno di mercati nuovi, migliori e non controllati più che di mercati controllati dallo stato (o dello stato, se è per questo) e agire di conseguenza.

Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.

The aforementioned “trade group,” the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, has already brought in former National Security Agency director Keith Alexander and a firm headed by former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff to “facilitate” the project.

The gang’s all here! The government, former government hangers-on, bankers … hey, wait, someone’s missing. Who could it be? Oh, yeah — you! But don’t worry. You do have a role to play. For starters, you get to pick up the check.

When Alexander discovered his security services (marketed through his “consulting” firm, IronNet Cybersecurity, Inc.) weren’t a hot seller at $1 million a month he dusted off the old “public-private partnership” scam … round up “customers” who aren’t willing to pay, then bring the state in to stick taxpayers with the bill.

Even garden variety “public-private partnerships” are bad ideas. Their “public” parts relate to payment of costs (that’s you). Their “private” parts relate to allocation of benefits (that’s them). The state and their “private” partners split the blame for failure — not by sharing it, but by tossing it back and forth until everyone gets worn out and forgets what happened and they can get back to picking your pocket.

And of course neither “public” nor “private” means what it sounds like. The “private” side consists of people like Alexander, Chertoff and their faceless banker friends — no longer or not yet technically in government employ but teeth clamped firmly on the teat. The “public” side consists of government bureaucrats eagerly anticipating similar future career paths. A revolving door connects the two sides. If it’s hard to see, that’s because it’s whirling so fast (listen for the sonic boom). You pay the freight, but you’re not really involved otherwise.

This particular “partnership,” though, is far from garden variety. How do I know? Simple: It’s got “war” in its description.

Wars have sides. Wars have enemies.

Don’t believe me? Ask Bounkham “Bou Bou” Phonesavanh, who’s home from the hospital after rampaging  (“public”) drug warriors threw a flash bang grenade into his playpen during a raid. You may have seen his story on the evening news, sandwiched in between “public service announcements” for the (“private”) Partnership for a Drug-Free America. This is your brain on the war on drugs.

The objective of this proposed “public-private” war effort is to repair the government fence long since erected (by the same “public” and “private” players asking for it) around banking, payment and financial services.

The enemy is unregulated markets and their customers (including you). Think Bitcoin. Think Uber and Lyft.

These markets operate — sometimes actually, always potentially — outside the web of state regulation set up to deliver such markets as monopolies to those with political pull. They’ve always been around (think barter; think community currencies; think “jitneys” and “gypsy cabs”), but these days they’re growing like Topsy. Powered by ubiquitous Internet access and the availability of strong encryption technology, they represent a growing danger not just to particular monopolists but to the system of state control that guarantees their monopolies.

The justifying propaganda rollout that will eventually culminate in “security standards” and “proactive/preemptive action” is already in progress. It’s probably not coincidence that media coverage of this proposal immediately follows coverage of an allegedly ISIS-linked blog post on using Bitcoin to “enable jihad on a large scale.” In fact I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to learn that the authors of that blog post and of the “cyber war council” press release share a cubicle in the Pentagon … or at least have each other on speed dial.

The bad news is there’s probably nothing you can do to prevent this “war council” or its planned war.

The good news is you can win that war. All you have to do is realize that you need the newer, better, unregulated markets more than you need the state-controlled markets — or, for that matter the state itself — and act accordingly.

Translations for this article:

• Italian, Guerra Cibernetica: Il Nemico Sei Tu.

In Kim Stanley Robinson’s epic 1993 sci-fi novel Red Mars, a pioneering group of scientists establish a colony on Mars. Some imagine it as a chance for a new life, run on entirely different principles from the chaotic Earth. Over time, though, the illusion is shattered as multinational corporations operating under the banner of governments move in, viewing Mars as nothing but an extension to business-as-usual.

It is a story that undoubtedly resonates with some members of the Bitcoin community. The vision of a free-floating digital cryptocurrency economy, divorced from the politics of colossal banks and aggressive governments, is under threat. Take, for example, the purists at Dark Wallet, accusing the Bitcoin Foundation of selling out to the regulators and the likes of the Winklevoss Twins.

Bitcoin sometimes appears akin to an illegal immigrant, trying to decide whether to seek out a rebellious existence in the black-market economy, or whether to don the slick clothes of the Silicon Valley establishment. The latter position – involving publicly accepting regulation and tax whilst privately lobbying against it – is obviously more acceptable and familiar to authorities.

Of course, any new scene is prone to developing internal echo chambers that amplify both commonalities and differences. While questions regarding Bitcoin’s regulatory status lead hyped-up cryptocurrency evangelists to engage in intense sectarian debates, to many onlookers Bitcoin is just a passing curiosity, a damp squib that will eventually suffer an ignoble death by media boredom. It is a mistake to believe that, though. The core innovation of Bitcoin is not going away, and it is deeper than currency.

What has been introduced to the world is a method to create decentralised peer-validated time-stamped ledgers. That is a fancy way of saying it is a method for bypassing the use of centralised officials in recording stuff. Such officials are pervasive in society, from a bank that records electronic transactions between me and my landlord, to patent officers that record the date of new innovations, to parliamentary registers noting the passing of new legislative acts.

The most visible use of this technical accomplishment is in the realm of currency, though, so it is worth briefly explaining the basics of Bitcoin in order to understand the political visions being unleashed as a result of it.

The technical vision 1.0

Banks are information intermediaries. Gone are the days of the merchant dumping a hoard of physical gold into the vaults for safekeeping. Nowadays, if you have ‘£350 in the bank’, it merely means the bank has recorded that for you in their data centre, on a database that has your account number and a corresponding entry saying ‘350’ next to it. If you want to pay someone electronically, you essentially send a message to your bank, identifying yourself via a pin or card number, asking them to change that entry in their database and to inform the recipient’s bank to do the same with the recipient’s account.

Thus, commercial banks collectively act as a cartel controlling the recording of transaction data, and it is via this process that they keep score of ‘how much money’ we have. To create a secure electronic currency system that does not rely on these banks thus requires three interacting elements. Firstly, one needs to replace the private databases that are controlled by them. Secondly, one needs to provide a way for people to change the information on that database (‘move money around’). Thirdly, one needs to convince people that the units being moved around are worth something.

To solve the first element, Bitcoin provides a public database, or ledger, that is referred to reverently as the blockchain. There is a way for people to submit information for recording in the ledger, but once it gets recorded, it cannot be edited in hindsight. If you’ve heard about bitcoin ‘mining’ (using ‘hashing algorithms’), that is what that is all about. A scattered collective of mercenary clerks essentially hire their computers out to collectively maintain the ledger, baking (or weaving) transaction records into it.

Secondly, Bitcoin has a process for individuals to identify themselves in order to submit transactions to those clerks to be recorded on that ledger. That is where public-key cryptography comes in. I have a public Bitcoin address (somewhat akin to my account number at a bank) and I then control that public address with a private key (a bit like I use my private pin number to associate myself with my bank account). This is what provides anonymity.

The result of these two elements, when put together, is the ability for anonymous individuals to record transactions between their bitcoin accounts on a database that is held and secured by a decentralised network of techno-clerks (‘miners’). As for the third element – convincing people that the units being transacted are worth something – that is a more subtle question entirely that I will not address here.

The political vision 1.0

Note the immediate political implications. Within the Bitcoin system, a set of powerful central intermediaries (the cartel of commercial banks, connected together via the central bank, underwritten by government), gets replaced with a more diffuse network intermediary, apparently controlled by no-one in particular.

This generally appeals to people who wish to devolve power away from banks by introducing more diversity into the monetary system. Those with a left-wing anarchist bent, who perceive the state and banking sector as representing the same elite interests, may recognise in it the potential for collective direct democratic governance of currency. It has really appealed, though, to conservative libertarians who perceive it as a commodity-like currency, free from the evils of the central bank and regulation.

The corresponding political reaction from policy-makers and establishment types takes three immediate forms. Firstly, there are concerns about it being used for money laundering and crime (‘Bitcoin is the dark side’). Secondly, there are concerns about consumer protection (‘Bitcoin is full of cowboy operators’). Thirdly, there are concerns about tax (‘this allows people to evade tax’).

The general status quo bias of regulators, who fixate on the negative potentials of Bitcoin whilst remaining blind to negatives in the current system, sets the stage for a political battle. Bitcoin enthusiasts, passionate about protecting the niche they have carved out, become prone to imagining conspiratorial scenes of threatened banks fretfully lobbying the government to ban Bitcoin, or of paranoid politicians panicking about the integrity of the national currency.

The technical vision 2.0

Outside the media hype around these Bitcoin dramas, though, a deeper movement is developing. It focuses not only on Bitcoin’s potential to disrupt commercial banks, but also on the more general potential for decentralised blockchains to disrupt other types of centralised information intermediaries.

Copyright authorities, for example, record people’s claims to having produced a unique work at a unique date and authoritatively stamp it for them. Such centralised ‘timestamping’ more generally is called ‘notarisation’. One non-monetary function for a Bitcoin-style blockchain could thus be to replace the privately controlled ledger of the notary with a public ledger that people can record claims on. This is precisely what Proof of Existence and Originstamp are working on.

And what about domain name system (DNS) registries that record web addresses? When you type in a URL like www.e-ir.info, the browser first steers you to a DNS registry like Afilias, which maintains a private database of URLs alongside information on which IP address to send you to. One can, however, use a blockchain to create a decentralised registry of domain name ownership, which is what Namecoin is doing. Theoretically, this process could be used to record share ownership, land ownership, or ownership in general (see, for example, Mastercoin’s projects).

The biggest information intermediaries, though, are often hidden in plain sight. What is Facebook? Isn’t it just a company that you send information to, which is then stored in their database and subsequently displayed to you and your friends? You log in with your password (proving your identity), and then can alter that database by sending them further messages (‘I’d like to delete that photo’). Likewise with Twitter, Dropbox, and countless other web services.

Unlike the original internet, which was largely used for transmission of static content, we experience sites like Facebook as interactive playgrounds where we can use programmes installed in some far away computer. In the process of such interactivity, we give groups like Facebook huge amounts of information. Indeed, they set themselves up as information honeytraps in order to create a profit-making platform where advertisers can sell you things based on the information. This simultaneously creates a large information repository for authorities like the NSA to browse. This interaction of corporate power and state power is inextricably tied to the profitable nature of centrally held data.

But what if you could create interactive web services that did not revolve around single information intermediaries like Facebook? That is precisely what groups like Ethereum are working towards. Where Bitcoin is a way to record simple transaction information on a decentralised ledger, Ethereum wants to create a ‘decentralised computational engine’. This is a system for running programmes, or executing contracts, on a blockchain held in play via a distributed network of computers rather than Mark Zuckerberg’s data centres.

It all starts to sounds quite sci-fi, but organisations like Ethereum are leading the charge on building ‘Decentralised Autonomous Organisations’, hardcoded entities that people can interact with, but that nobody in particular controls. I send information to this entity, triggering the code and setting in motion further actions. As Bitshares describes it, such an organisation “has a business plan encoded in open source software that executes automatically in an entirely transparent and trustworthy manner.”

The political vision 2.0

By removing a central point of control, decentralised systems based on code – whether they exist to move Bitcoin tokens around, store files, or build contracts – resemble self-contained robots. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook or Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase are human faces behind the digital interface of the services they run. They can overtly manipulate, or bow in to pressure to censor. A decentralised currency or a decentralised version of Twitter seems immune from such manipulation.

It is this that gives rise to a narrative of empowerment and, indeed, at first sight this offers an exhilarating vision of self-contained outposts of freedom within a world otherwise dominated by large corruptible institutions. At many cryptocurrency meet-ups, there is an excitable mix of techno-babble infused with social claims. The blockchain can record contracts between free individuals, and if enforcement mechanisms can be coded in to create self-enforcing ‘smart contracts’, we have a system for building encoded law that bypasses states.

Bitcoin and other blockchain technologies, though, are empowering right now precisely because they are underdogs. They introduce diversity into the existing system and thereby expand our range of tools. In the minds of hardcore proponents, though, blockchain technologies are more than this. They are a replacement system, superior to existing institutions in every possible way. When amplified to this extreme, though, the apparently utopian project can begin to take on a dystopian, conservative hue.

Binary politics

When asked about why Bitcoin is superior to other currencies, proponents often point to its ‘trustless‘ nature. No trust needs be placed in fallible ‘governments and corporations’. Rather, a self-sustaining system can be created by individuals following a set of rules that are set apart from human frailties or intervention. Such a system is assumed to be fairer by allowing people to win out against those powers who can abuse rules.

The vision thus is not one of bands of people getting together into mutualistic self-help groups. Rather, it is one of individuals acting as autonomous agents, operating via the hardcoded rules with other autonomous agents, thereby avoiding those who seek to harm their interests.

Note the underlying dim view of human nature. While anarchist philosophers often imagine alternative governance systems based on mutualistic community foundations, the ‘empowerment’ here does not stem from building community ties. Rather it is imagined to come from retreating from trust and taking refuge in a defensive individualism mediated via mathematical contractual law.

It carries a certain disdain for human imperfection, particularly the imperfection of those in power, but by implication the imperfection of everyone in society. We need to be protected from ourselves by vesting power in lines of code that execute automatically. If only we can lift currency away from manipulation from the Federal Reserve. If only we can lift Wikipedia away from the corruptible Wikimedia Foundation.

Activists traditionally revel in hot-blooded asymmetric battles of interest (such as that between StrikeDebt! and the banks), implicitly holding an underlying faith in the redeemability of human-run institutions. The Bitcoin community, on the other hand, often seems attracted to a detached anti-politics, one in which action is reduced to the binary options of Buy In or Buy Out of the coded alternative. It echoes consumer notions of the world, where one ‘expresses’ oneself not via debate or negotiation, but by choosing one product over another. We’re leaving Earth for Mars. Join if you want.

It all forms an odd, tense amalgam between visions of exuberant risk-taking freedom and visions of risk-averse anti-social paranoia. This ambiguity is not unique to cryptocurrency (see, for example, this excellent parody of the trustless society), but in the case of Bitcoin, it is perhaps best exemplified by the narrative offered by Cody Wilson in Dark Wallet’s crowdfunding video. “Bitcoin is what they fear it is, a way to leave… to make a choice. There’s a system approaching perfection, just in time for our disappearance, so, let there be dark”.

The myth of political ‘exit’

But where exactly is this perfect system Wilson is disappearing to?

Back in the days of roving bands of nomadic people, the political option of ‘exit’ was a reality. If a ruler was oppressive, you could actually pack up and take to the desert in a caravan. The bizarre thing about the concept of ‘exit to the internet’ is that the internet is a technology premised on massive state and corporate investment in physical infrastructure, fibre optic cables laid under seabeds, mass production of computers from low-wage workers in the East, and mass affluence in Western nations. If you are in the position to be having dreams of technological escape, you are probably not in a position to be exiting mainstream society. You are mainstream society.

Don’t get me wrong. Wilson is a subtle and interesting thinker, and it is undoubtedly unfair to suggest that he really believes that one can escape the power dynamics of the messy real world by finding salvation in a kind of internet Matrix. What he is really trying to do is to invoke one side of the crypto-anarchist mantra of ‘privacy for the weak, but transparency for the powerful’.

That is a healthy radical impulse, but the conservative element kicks in when the assumption is made that somehow privacy alone is what enables social empowerment. That is when it turns into an individualistic ‘just leave me alone’ impulse fixated with negative liberty. Despite the rugged frontier appeal of the concept, the presumption that empowerment simply means being left alone to pursue your individual interests is essentially an ideology of the already-empowered, not the vulnerable.

This is the same tension you find in the closely related cypherpunk movement. It is often pitched as a radical empowerment movement, but as Richard Boase notes, it is “a world full of acronyms and codes, impenetrable to all but the most cynical, distrustful, and political of minds.” Indeed, crypto-geekery offers nothing like an escape from power dynamics. One merely escapes to a different set of rules, not one controlled by ‘politicians’, but one in the hands of programmers and those in control of computing power.

It is only when we think in these terms that we start to see Bitcoin not as a realm ‘lacking the rules imposed by the state’, but as a realm imposing its own rules. It offers a form of protection, but guarantees nothing like ‘empowerment’ or ‘escape’.

Techno-Leviathan

Technology often seems silent and inert, a world of ‘apolitical’ objects. We are thus prone to being blind to the power dynamics built into our use of it. For example, isn’t email just a useful tool? Actually, it is highly questionable whether one can ‘choose’ whether to use email or not. Sure, I can choose between Gmail or Hotmail, but email’s widespread uptake creates network effects that mean opting out becomes less of an option over time. This is where the concept of becoming ‘enslaved to technology’ emerges from. If you do not buy into it, you will be marginalised, and that is political.

This is important. While individual instances of blockchain technology can clearly be useful, as a class of technologies designed to mediate human affairs, they contain a latent potential for encouraging technocracy. When disassociated from the programmers who design them, trustless blockchains floating above human affairs contains the specter of rule by algorithms. It is a vision (probably accidently) captured by Ethereum’s Joseph Lubin when he says “There will be ways to manipulate people to make bad decisions, but there won’t be ways to manipulate the system itself”.

Interestingly, it is a similar abstraction to that made by Hobbes. In his Leviathan, self-regarding people realise that it is in their interests to exchange part of their freedom for security of self and property, and thereby enter into a contract with a Sovereign, a deified personage that sets out societal rules of engagement. The definition of this Sovereign has been softened over time – along with the fiction that you actually contract to it – but it underpins modern expectations that the government should guarantee property rights.

Conservative libertarians hold tight to the belief that, if only hard property rights and clear contracting rules are put in place, optimal systems spontaneously emerge. They are not actually that far from Hobbes in this regard, but their irritation with Hobbes’ vision is that it relies on politicians who, being actual people, do not act like a detached contractual Sovereign should, but rather attempt to meddle, make things better, or steal. Don’t decentralised blockchains offer the ultimate prospect of protected property rights with clear rules, but without the political interference?

This is essentially the vision of the internet techno-leviathan, a deified crypto-sovereign whose rules we can contract to. The rules being contracted to are a series of algorithms, step by step procedures for calculations which can only be overridden with great difficulty. Perhaps, at the outset, this represents, à la Rousseau, the general will of those who take part in the contractual network, but the key point is that if you get locked into a contract on that system, there is no breaking out of it.

This, of course, appeals to those who believe that powerful institutions operate primarily by breaching property rights and contracts. Who really believes that though? For much of modern history, the key issue with powerful institutions has not been their willingness to break contracts. It has been their willingness to use seemingly unbreakable contracts to exert power. Contracts, in essence, resemble algorithms, coded expressions of what outcomes should happen under different circumstances. On average, they are written by technocrats and, on average, they reflect the interests of elite classes.

That is why liberation movements always seek to break contracts set in place by old regimes, whether it be peasant movements refusing to honour debt contracts to landlords, or the DRC challenging legacy mining concessions held by multinational companies, or SMEs contesting the terms of swap contracts written by Barclays lawyers. Political liberation is as much about contesting contracts as it is about enforcing them.

Building the techno-political vision 3.0

The point I am trying to make is that you do not escape the world of big corporates and big government by wishing for a trustless set of technologies that collectively resemble a technocratic crypto-sovereign. Rather, you use technology as a tool within ongoing political battles, and you maintain an ongoing critical outlook towards it. The concept of the decentralised blockchain is powerful. The cold, distrustful edge of cypherpunk, though, is only empowering when it is firmly in the service of creative warm-blooded human communities situated in the physical world of dirt and grime.

Perhaps this means de-emphasising the focus on how blockchains can be used to store digital assets or property, and focusing rather on those without assets. For example, think of the potential of blockchain voting systems that groups like Restart Democracy are experimenting with. Centralised vote-counting authorities are notorious sources of political anxiety in fragile countries. What if the ledger recording the votes cast was held by a decentralised network of citizens, with voters having a means to anonymously transmit votes to be stored on a publicly viewable database?

We do not want a future society free from people we have to trust, or one in which the most we can hope for is privacy. Rather, we want a world in which technology is used to dilute the power of those systems that cause us to doubt trust relationships. Screw escaping to Mars.

A Dark Wallet é um conjunto de ferramentas para armazenar, enviar e receber bitcoins que busca proteger e tornar anônimo o uso da criptomoeda. É uma reação contra aqueles que pretendem tirar o cripto das criptomoedas.

Se desejar testá-la, você pode ir até a página do Unsystem e navegar até o github. Lá está disponível o código fonte para download. Se estiver usando um sistema Windows, baixe o arquivo .zip. Se estiver no OSX, poderá escolher tanto o .zip como o tar.bz. Se estiver utilizando o Linux, você provavelmente precisará saber quais programas de arquivamento estão disponíveis no seu sistema e escolher o arquivo para baixar de acordo com eles. Assim que fizer o download, extraia a pasta para um local conhecido.

Para instalar a extensão ao seu Chrome Browser, vá em Configurações > Extensões, marque a opção Modo do desenvolvedor. Clique em “Carregar extensão expandida” e encontre a pasta que você acabou de extrair e aperte OK.

Você agora terá a Dark Wallet instalada no seu browser.

Ao abri-la pela primeira vez, você é recebido em uma interface limpa, simples e plana. A partir daí, você deve criar uma conta e pode escolher usar a Testnet se quiser. Como se trata aqui de um software alpha, essa é a melhor opção. A Testnet é uma arquitetura paralela usada para o teste e o desenvolvimento de softwares relacionados ao bitcoin. O sistema é desenhado de forma que as moedas dentro dele não tenham valor.

Quando sua conta for criada, você será levado à sua carteira. A partir de lá, você poderá gerenciar e criar “bolsos” (“pockets”), que são endereços adinistráveis dentro da carteira, e verificar seu histórico de transações. Há uma ferramenta de fundos chamada Multisig, que permite a criação de uma carteira que precise ser assinada por várias chaves para começar uma transação. Isso pode ser especialmente útil para empresas e organizações em que a pessoa que administra os bitcoins é seu dono e, devido à irreversibilidade das transações, é necessário algum tipo de transparência.

Na seção de envios estão localizadas as ferramentas básicas para enviar bitcoins para outros endereços, com opções avançadas como “CoinJoin”, que serve para misturar as transações de diferentes usuários, tornando-as difíceis de rastrear através do blockchain. A natureza pública das transações de bitcoin significa que há um risco de a anonimidade ser comprometida se uma parte má intencionada for dedicada o bastante.

Há também uma opção de depósito de fiação (“escrow”), que ainda não está ativa. Presumivelmente, isso permitirá que as transações sejam feitas em um endereço por um árbitro independente e, se houver alguma disputa entre as partes, o árbitro terá a palavra final na direção da transação. Se implementada corretamente, essa ferramenta poderá ser o antídoto descentralizante às ferramentas monolíticas como o Paypal e os bancos no papel de resolução de disputas. E é um padrão extremamente necessário para que o bitcoin ganhe popularidade.

Outras características incluem um sistema de contatos e há uma sala de conversas pública no “lobby”. É uma ótima ferramenta atualmente, uma vez que as conversas vão desde bobagens e absurdos até a resposta a perguntas sobre o programa e ao envio de moedas de teste entre as pessoas, para que as pessoas saibam como a Dark Wallet funciona. Se você não conseguir nenhuma testcoin, várias “torneiras” estão disponíveis para enviar uma quantidade razoável de testcoins para a sua carteira. Esta é uma delas com a qual eu e outras pessoas tivemos sucesso.

Embora a versão alfa do programa tenha alguns problemas, seu design e suas ferramentas têm muito potencial para torná-la a carteira de bitcoin mais popular. Com isso, o bitcoin poderia passar a ser impossível de ser assimilado ao paradigma financeiro atual. Esse é provavelmente o maior potencial das criptomoedas. Esse conceito, junto com um possível Dark Market no futuro pode ser uma alternativa extremamente robusta ao sistema de mercado “branco” atual.

O Dark Market, atualmente, é apenas uma prova de conceito e não está em desenvolvimento ativo, já que o time UnSystem quer focar seus esforços na Dark Wallet. O Dark Market seria, simplesmente, uma plataforma de mercado com o mesmo foco na privacidade e na anonimidade que a Dark Wallet. Seria uma contraeconomia P2P difícil de se enfrentar – nas palavras de Cody Wilson, onde “ninguém teria que ser Dread Pirate Roberts”.

Inicialmente, pode parecer que a Dark Wallet e o conceito do Dark Market sejam mais adequados à venda de contrabando, mas não há motivos por que, enquanto plataforma, ele não possa se tornar um grande bazar – uma nova Amazon ou eBay, livre das restrições centralizadas, com o uso de criptografia e redes peer to peer para facilitar as transações e resolver disputas.

Um mercado cinzento e negro paralelo que seduz o mercado branco.

Atualmente, há uma guerra entre aqueles que veem as criptomoedas como fundamentos sólidos para uma contraeconomia, aqueles que desejam esterilizá-la e recolocá-la dentro do mercado formal do estado e aqueles que simplesmente desejam destruí-la. Isso é imprescindível para algumas pessoas porque somente o mercado branco pode ser efetivamente controlado pelo estado, só no mercado branco é possível extrair impostos sobre a movimentação de bens e serviços e é só nele que é possível impor regulamentações. A Dark Wallet é uma defesa contra tudo isso, não importa se sejamos atores conscientes da contraeconomia ou não. Enquanto anarquistas, não é apenas ético, mas é também parte de nosso objetivo participar da contraeconomia e ajudar a expandi-la – executar trocas voluntárias sem alimentar o estado. A guerra entre esses mercados é antiga e a Dark Wallet é uma das novas armas para as próximas batalhas.

Traduzido do inglês para o português por Erick Vasconcelos.

Dark Wallet is a suite of tools for storing, sending and receiving Bitcoins that seeks to protect and anonymise the use of the crypto-currency. It stands against those who would seek to take the crypto out of crypto-currency.

If you do wish to test it out yourself, you can find it by going to UnSystem’s page and navigating to the github. From there the source code is available to download. If you are using a windows system, download the .zip. If you are on OSX, you can choose either the .zip or the tar.bz. If you are using Linux, you should probably be aware of what archiving programs are on your system and choose accordingly. Once it is downloaded, extract the folder to a known location.

To install the extension to your Chrome Browser, go to Settings > Extensions, then tick the Developer Options box, and then click “load unpacked extension“,  find the folder you have just extracted and hit OK.

You will now have Dark Wallet installed on your browser.

Upon running Dark Wallet for the first time, you are greeted with a clear, simple and flat interface. From here you are prompted to create an account, you can choose to use the Bitcoin Testnet if you wish. This is alpha software, so this is the wise choice. The Testnet is a parallel Bitcoin architecture used for the testing and development of Bitcoin related software. It is designed in such a way that the coins in the system remain worthless.

Once your account is created, you are taken to your wallet. From here you can manage and create “pockets,” which are administerable sub-wallet addresses, and check your transaction history. There is a Multisig fund feature, which allows the creation of a wallet that is required to be signed by multiple keys in order to initiate a transaction. This seems especially useful for business and organisations where the person administrating the Bitcoins is not necessarily the owner of the Bitcoins, and due to the irreversible nature of these transactions, accountability is important.

In the send section are the basic tools to send your Bitcoins to other addresses, with added advanced options such as “CoinJoin” which is a feature that mixes transactions from different users together, making them difficult to track through the blockchain. The public nature of Bitcoin transactions means there is a risk of anonymity being compromised if a malicious party is interested enough.

There is also an escrow option that is not yet active. Presumably this will allow transactions to be held at an address by a third party arbiter, if a dispute arises between two parties, the arbiter can have final say as to which direction the transaction flows. If implemented properly, this could be an effective decentralised antidote to monolithic institutions such as Paypal and banks in the role of a dispute resolution service. This is a much needed standard, if Bitcoin is to gain mainstream traction.

Other features include a system for keeping contacts, and right now there is a public chat under “lobby”. This is a great feature to have right now, the lobby moves randomly from bouts of nonsense and pointless trolling to answering questions about the software, and people sending and receiving test coins to each other so they can get a sense of how Dark Wallet works. If you can’t get a hold of any Testcoins, numerous “faucets” are available that will send you a reasonable sum of TestCoins to your wallet. Here is one that I, and others have had success with.

While the alpha is not without it’s bugs, the design and features available have great potential to proliferate and become a mainstream Bitcoin wallet. In doing so, it could make Bitcoin unassimilable into the current financial paradigm. This is possibly the greatest potential that Bitcoin can offer. This concept, along with the possible future Dark Market may be an extremely robust and open alternative to the current white market system.

Dark Market is at present a proof of concept not currently in active development, as the UnSystem team wish to focus their current efforts on Dark Wallet. To it put simply, Dark Market is a market platform with the same focus on privacy and anonymity as Dark Wallet. A P2P distributed counter economy, which can not easily be shut down – in Cody Wilson’s words, market “where no one has to be Dread Pirate Roberts”.

While an initial look at Dark Wallet, and the concept Dark Market may seem like they are best suited for selling contraband, there is no reason that this, as a platform, could not eventually become a Grand Bazaar – a new Amazon or eBay free from centralised restriction, utilising cryptography and peer to peer networking to facilitate transactions and resolve disputes.

A parallel grey and black market that seduces the white.

Right now there is a battle between those who see crypto-currencies as a solid foundation for a modern counter-economy, those who wish to sterilise and recuperate it into the state approved white market and those who simply want to destroy it. This is imperative to them because only the white market can effectively be controlled by the state, only in the white market can taxes be sought on the movement of goods and services and regulation be placed on what we trade. Dark Wallet equips us against this, whether we are self-consciously engaging in the counter-economy or not. As anarchists it is not only ethical, but conducive to our goal to engage and expand the counter-economy – to engage in voluntary exchange without feeding the state. The war between these markets is an old one, and Dark Wallet represents a new weapon in that battle.

Anyone who works within a corporate or government hierarchy, and has to do their job despite constant interference and irrationality from higher-ups, will recognize the truth of this phrase from Dilbert: “Bossworld, where the laws of time, space and mathematics don’t apply.”

“Currently there is no system by which Bitcoin marketplaces can be held accountable. Resorting to government legal systems might indeed be the only way by which Mt.Gox customers can receive the restitution they deserve. What does have to be kept in mind is that this option is far from optimal. Further talk of government regulation of crytocurrencies will not be a surprising result. In fact it seems inevitable. In the future the digital counter-economy will have to find ways to regulate itself. The ingenious online methods that are bound to come up might lead to insights by which we can regulate our own “analog” communities as well. One day government regulation of the marketplace will be a thing of the past as the self-regulating counter-economy replaces it entirely.”

Apoximadamente 23 bitcoins foram levadas, o equivalente a mais ou menos US$ 14.500. Um valor considerável. O roubo ocorreu apesar das medidas de segurança tomadas pelo Fr33 Aid no site Blockchain.info, que incluíam o uso da autenticação em duas etapas. Esse tipo de acontecimento não é novo. Com frequência nós vemos relatos de furtos de bitcoin de carteiras virtuais. Já aconteceu no coinbase, já aconteceu ao MtGox, num roubo de US$ 500 milhões que terminou por derrubar esse mercado, e também já aconteceu na conta do Fr33 Aid no Blockchain.info.

O que essas ocorrências tinham em comum era o fato de que as carteiras estavam armazenadas em contas online. Armazenar bitcoins em carteiras virtuais num servidor é apenas uma das opções disponíveis aos usuários de criptomoedas. Mantendo a coerência com a minha ideia de que a segurança na internet é nossa responsabilidade, vou argumentar aqui que armazenar sua carteira localmente é a melhor alternativa para aqueles que se preocupam com a segurança de seus bitcoins.

Embora não faltem histórias aterrorizantes sobre pessoas que perderam seus bitcoins em armazenagem local devido a malware ou perda de dados, esses fatores podem ser mitigados ou até eliminados com o emprego das melhores práticas de segurança. O problema com o armazenamento num servidor online é que nós temos que confiar que os gerentes empregam essas medidas. Em casos como o do MtGox, porém, em que práticas de segurança ruins eram seguidas, muitos descobriram tarde demais.

Provavelmente, a forma mais segura de proteger seus bitcoins do roubo online é armazená-los num dispositivo air gapped – ou seja, sem conexão com a internet. Por exemplo, você pode colocar sua carteira num pen drive e guardá-lo num lugar seguro. Se estiver utilizando um sistema operacional Linux, você pode também dar um passo extra de criptografar o pen drive quando for formatá-lo. Embora seguro, esse método é mais efetivo se você estiver apenas armazenando seus bitcoins ou guardando a maior parte da sua criptomoeda enquanto utiliza uma segunda carteira para transações frequentes, porque apesar de você ainda poder receber transferências, você precisará encontrar fisicamente o pen drive e tirá-lo do air gap antes de utilizá-lo. Também existe o problema de que pen drives parecem bastante propensos a desaparecer.

Para resolver esses problemas, eu sou a favor de uma solução multi-fatores que utiliza algumas ferramentas simples para manter sua carteira protegida de roubos e perdas. Não é nada particularmente revolucionário; os princípios básicos estão descritos no site bitcoin.org. Aqui eu mostro um exemplo específico de como executar esses passos.

Este exemplo terá o Bitcoin Core (antes conhecido como Bitcoin-QT) como programa para a carteira. Embora ele não tenha muitas funcionalidades, ele é simples e seguro. Quando for baixar sua carteira, certifique-se de fazer o download de uma fonte confiável. Um site qualquer que armazene o Bitcoin Core pode conter malwares feitos para roubar suas moedas. A não ser que os servidores da Bitcoin Foundation tenham sido invadidos, é possível estar bastante seguro de que você está baixando o programa desejado de seu website. Se estiver utilizando uma versão mais antiga do software, como o próprio Bitcoin-QT, o mais indicado é mantê-lo atualizado e instalar a versão mais recente do Bitcoin Core.

Quando você utilizar o Bitcoin Core, o primeiro passo para garantir a segurança da sua carteira é usar a ferramenta de criptografia da carteira. Ela pode ser acessada clicando em Settings > Encrypt Wallet.

Escolha uma senha forte que você não vá esquecer. Se esquecer essa senha, você terá perdido seus bitcoins. Esta fauncionalidade criptografa suas chaves privadas e evita que os bitcoins sejam enviados do seu endereço sem uma autorização com senha. Isso significa que se alguém tiver acesso físico à sua máquina ou a seu dispositivo air gapped, essa pessoa poderá ver o conteúdo da carteira, inclusive seu endereço, mas não conseguirá roubá-lo sem quebrar a criptografia – o que não é trivial.

Essa funcionalidade simples evita roubos, mas a perda de moedas é um risco ainda maior. Então nós devemos fazer um backup de nossa carteira. O armazenamento online é muito mais conveniente que o armazenamento físico e menos suscetível a perdas, mas essas soluções frequentemente não são seguras, então quando estiver fazer o backup de uma carteira, um nível extra de segurança não deve ser desconsiderado.

Para fazer o backup de sua carteira utilizando o Bitcoin Core, clique em File > Backup Wallet.

Escolha uma pasta e salve. Isso cria uma cópia do arquivo “wallet.dat”, que contém suas chaves privadas. Uma solução extremamente segura para backup é usar PGP para criptografar e mandar o arquivo por email para você mesmo. Isso tem várias vantagens, como o próprio fato de que essa ação esconde o envio do backup da sua carteira, fazendo com que ela seja menos visada por potenciais invasores. Você pode usar uma palavra-chave no assunto do email para torná-lo mais fácil de encontrar mais tarde, uma vez que isso fará com que a data e hora sejam automaticamente registrados. Isso é importante porque você precisará fazer um novo backup se fizer um novo endereço na sua carteira. Com múltiplas contas de email que utilizam PGP, você pode fazer com que as cópias sejam salvas automaticamente em cada uma.

Se você ainda não utiliza o PGP mas deseja usá-lo em seu email, você pode seguir este tutorial (em inglês).

Se não desejar utilizar PGP, outra solução pode ser criptografar o arquivo “wallet.dat” com o WinRAR/RAR. Na maioria dos sistemas, para criptografar um arquivo utilizando RAR, tudo o que você precisa fazer é clicar nele com o botão direito e escolher “Add to archive” (ou “Adicionar ao arquivo”, na versão em português). A partir daí, selecione a aba Advanced (“Avançado”) e Set password (“Configurar senha”).

Como sempre, uma senha forte é essencial. Marque a opção de esconder as extensões de arquivos, para aumentar a segurança ocultando de invasores a existência do backup da carteira. A partir daí, você pode usar esse arquivo criptografado e comprimido e colocá-lo em qualquer local de armazenamento online, como o Dropbox, ou enviá-lo para seu próprio email.

Tecnologicamente, não há nada que impeça que as criptomoedas mudem o mundo, contornando a necessidade de utilizar sistemas bancários convencionais e ignorando as regulamentações estatais ao comércio. Nós precisamos apenas que algumas pessoas tenham a capacidade para implementar essas moedas e que as outras tenham a confiança de adotá-las.

Seguir os passos acima é só uma das maneiras de ter acesso de forma conveniente à sua carteira e, ao mesmo tempo, mantê-la a salvo de roubos e perdas. O futuro das criptomoedas depende da confiança no sistema e, ao longo do tempo, soluções melhores para a segurança das carteiras deverão ser desenvolvidas. Proteger nossos bitcoins de perdas e roubos não apenas nos beneficia pessoalmente, mas também cria um ambiente de maior confiança no sistema e garante um futuro de mais sucesso para essas tecnologias.

Traduzido do inglês para o português por Erick Vasconcelos.

“The only entities and organizations with anything to fear from Bitcoin and its offspring are governments (which rely on the ability to tax) and the political class (including pseudo-”private” parasites who make their livings sucking off the tax teat). And they SHOULD be afraid. Their day is coming to an end.”