Crypto Privacy Shouldn’t Be a Purity Test
The cryptocurrency world has always had a strange relationship with privacy. Since its cypherpunk origins in the 1990s, when cryptographers and activists circulated manifestos about using encryption to defeat government surveillance, privacy has been treated as almost sacred. Eric Hughes, one of the founders of the cypherpunk movement, wrote in 1993 that “cypherpunks write code” rather than wait for governments to protect their freedoms. John Gilmore, another early cypherpunk, wanted guarantees “with physics and mathematics, not with laws” that would keep even the NSA at bay. This radical ethos birthed Bitcoin and inspired coins like Monero and Zcash, designed to make transactions genuinely untraceable.
The crypto community’s commitment…
