An Open Letter of Thanksgiving To The Cypherpunks

November 23, 2023

Bitcoin Block Height 818,118

Dear Cypherpunks,

Despite its controversial roots, I think Thanksgiving is a good holiday. I like to take time to have a meal and acknowledge people and things I am thankful for. Good vibes only. 🤙.

I am thankful for my health and loving family, which keep me strong.

And I’m thankful for the Cypherpunks: alive, dead, and in prison. To quote Ezra Pound: “It was you that broke the new wood,/ Now is a time for carving./ We have one sap and one root….”

I’m thankful for John Perry Barlow who wrote, “Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather…. We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.”

I am thankful for Timothy May, who wrote, “A specter is haunting the modern world, the specter 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.”

I’m thankful for Eric Hughes, who wrote “We the Cypherpunks are dedicated to building anonymous systems.  We are defending our privacy with cryptography, with anonymous mail forwarding systems, with digital signatures, and with electronic money.” I’m thankful for Phil Zimmerman, who wrote: “Advances in technology will not permit the maintenance of the status quo, as far as privacy is concerned. The status quo is unstable. If we do nothing, new technologies will give the government new automatic surveillance capabilities that Stalin could never have dreamed of. The only way to hold the line on privacy in the information age is strong cryptography. And pretty good privacy.”

I’m thankful for Julian Assange, who wrote “…the universe, our physical universe, has that property that makes it possible for an individual or a group of individuals to reliably, automatically, even without knowing, encipher something, so that all the resources and all the political will of the strongest superpower on earth may not decipher it. And the paths of encipherment between people can mesh together to create regions free from the coercive force of the outer state. Free from mass interception. Free from state control.”

I’m thankful for Adam back, who wrote, “A cost-function should be efficiently verifiable, but parameterisably expensive to compute.”

I’m thankful for Hal Finney, who wrote, “Fundamentally, I believe we will have the kind of society that most people want. If we want freedom and privacy, we must persuade others that these are worth having. There are no shortcuts.”

I’m thankful for Wei Dai, who implied that highly advanced civilizations likely enjoy galaxy-level privacy when he wrote, “If it’s true that the only efficient way to cool material down to near absolute zero is with black holes, we should expect all sufficiently advanced civilizations to live near them. However, this prediction may be difficult to test since they would have virtually no radiation signatures.”

I am thankful for Nick Szabo, who wrote, “Making personal property functionality dependent on trusted third parties (i.e. trusted rather than forced by the protocol to keep to the agreement governing the security protocol and property) is in most cases quite unacceptable.”

I am thankful for Satoshi Nakamoto, who wrote, “The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve.” And so much more.

I am thankful for Andreas Antonopoulos and Anita Posch whose teachings often made me burn the roast beef in my little kitchen. Anita, thank you for writing, “Bitcoin is carried by a social movement. It’s a silent revolution. By being in charge of our private keys, each one of us is part of a collective with the power to force governments to be held accountable. With the help of Bitcoin, dictators can be toppled. Self custody your bitcoin, incapacitate them from the power to create and seize money and their funds will dry out. Hold them accountable by pressuring them to audit public funds.”

I’m thankful for Bitcoin, the embodiment of Cypherpunk ideals in the world, and the dematerialization of the frangible fiat façade. And I’m thankful for Nostr, its builders and users, a redoubt and a blooming free city. To quote Jack Dorsey, “Bitcoin and nostr are the only two truly censorship resistant technologies at scale.”

I am thankful for many Cypherpunks I haven’t mentioned here, and anonymous ones I will never know about. I’m thankful for the node and relay runners, coders and developers, wallet builders, miners, philosophers, writers, podcasters, artists, Viking OG’s, newcomers, traders, spenders, and HODLrs.

Bitcoin is Cypherpunk country, a true part of the forest mind. Friends, enemies: it connects us all. As Samourai Wallet recently said, “Bitcoin is speech, and speech must be free.”

Homo digitalis est homo econonomicus.

Thankfully, and Happily,

Cosmo Crixter (Bitcoiner)