Crypto as Civil Disobedience

What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood.

In short, I’m pretty confident Henry David Thoreau would’ve gladly joined me on my daily “Fed Salute.”

(The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City is within walking distance of the playhaus HQ — and within striking distance of my middle finger. #FTF.)

The topic Thoreau is describing in that quote is civil disobedience; in essence, breaking the law to change the law. Given the lack of regulatory clarity, some could argue supporting and participating in cryptography and decentralized information protocols is automatically a form of civil disobedience. Certainly there are plenty of nonviolent acts of protest you could accomplish in the crypto space. And I personally would argue that, if we want to uphold the vision of liberty the founding fathers had for this country, civil disobedience may become a necessary pushback to the geriatric system of corporate captured governance that are writing the rules today.

If we want to have any hope of reviving the American Dream (or more like Dreams, with some much-needed inclusive updates, a wider range of colors and gods represented) we need to ensure that there truly is a free market. In my opinion, crypto is the only sector left that can offer this, primarily in the form of guarding against a CBDC. But we need as many different dollar, stable coin providers as possible, and create a decentralized, and also numerous, marketplace of digital identity verification, management, and recovery providers. In doing so, we may still be able to protect our freedoms of speech, privacy, and commerce in the online space.

So what would civil disobedience look like in pursuit of the goal? Like Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who created the first anonymous, encrypted online marketplace — and, effectively, the first Bitcoin a use case — but also fueled drug trafficking? Like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, who released classified government documents exposing how the state still actively acts against its citizens interests, but were forced to flee their home countries as a result? Like Tornado Cash creators Roman Storm and Roman Semenov, who are going to jail on money laundering charges for writing an open-source program that protects the traceability of two parties that want to exchange crypto online?

It’s always a fine line. But over time, civil disobedience in the crypto space does appear to be progressing toward a better balance of making a change via nonviolent, victimless crimes. Today, it could be as simple as setting up a self-custody wallet and supporting projects and the builders you believe in.

—El Prof