As we navigate this crucial moment in the evolution of Ethereum and the broader cryptocurrency space, there is a growing call in the community to return to the foundational principles that once defined our movement.
How can we seize the momentum? How do we make degens and lurkers contribute to decentralization, openness, anti-censorship, and freedom?
Our intent is to offer tools and ideas to revive the cypherpunk spirit in Ethereum and the wider crypto landscape.
To achieve this, we must learn from past mistakes and adapt a 30-year-old narrative—one that remains as relevant as ever—to engage a market of disillusioned, passive, or simply indifferent and lazy users.
The Cypherpunks emerged to ignite social and political change, but if we’ve learned anything, it’s that computers and cryptography alone are not enough.
To drive meaningful impact, we need a broader spectrum of tools and languages that can effectively resonate with the public.
The Web3Privacy Now community identifies 5 key strategies to make this happen:
1) MAKE IT COLLABORATIVE & INCLUSIVE
“Our weakness, as hackers and cypherpunks, is not being inclusive enough and not welcoming interdisciplinarity.” - Jaromil
Break the Ego-Chamber, We Are an Ecosystem
Crypto has lost its strong ties with the broader Internet freedom movement, hacker culture, open-source software, and human rights organizations.
We are small collectives with a common mission, navigating a space dominated by venture capitalists, lurkers, and slogan-makers. If we don’t cultivate solidarity and understanding, our efforts will remain fragmented, isolated, and ultimately ineffective.
“The aggregation of knowledge and context at the meta level across projects is key. If we have a shared set of values, even if we’re competitors, we’re shooting for the same north star. If we make the ecosystem better, we all win.” - DrNick
Maximise Diversity and Positive-Sum Interactions
Life and our systems are inherently complex. To build meaningful parallel structures and defend our rights effectively, we need different backgrounds, skills, and perspectives.
At many events, artists, activists, and grassroots leaders have expressed frustration at feeling excluded and unable to understand our talks or use our tools. These are the people most open to change, yet we make things too complex, even suggesting that without using Linux or understanding advanced math, they don’t belong.
We should unite around the shared principles that matter, not the tools we use to achieve our individual visions.
From Cypherpunks to Care-Punks
Imagine how much more numerous and impactful we could be if only we joined forces with everyone who cares about the common good—artists, activists, principled politicians, writers, philosophers, policymakers, and academics.
They might not have the technical expertise to drive change, just as cryptographers and hackers may lack the broader social perspective needed to develop what truly matters.
“Freedom is both forming a vision of the future and putting the vision into practice, if you have one but not the other you cannot be free.” - lunar mining
Together we are stronger
A government would find it much harder to arrest developers and ban freedom services if they were supported by top defense attorneys, international human rights organizations, journalists, and academic professors.
Similarly, a politically neutral system for anonymous value and information exchange would be far more appealing and user-friendly if developers collaborated closely with sociologists, anthropologists, designers, and copywriters.
2) MAKE IT CULTURAL
“What’s missing right now isn’t the tools themselves, but the culture behind these communities. People continue to preach on capitalist and entertainment-driven uses of the tools while missing a socio-political agenda.” - Mykola Siusko
As Geert Lovink emphasizes, without a coherent and stabilizing narrative, movements remain reactive, disaggregated and precarious, always at risk of burnout and disillusion.
Make events reflecting and upholding crypto core values
Many crypto events resemble bank conferences and corporate hackathons.
We end up creating this feedback loop where attendees aim for free food and cheap swag, focusing on developing whatever streile project enough to win a bounty.
Each month, we move thousands of people and transfer millions in fiat currency across countries. We rarely use crypto for payments or funding, preferring bank transfers for their convenience.
What legacy systems are we shaping? What values are we passing on to young developers and users?
![Image linking to a video on Youtube titled "Values and Identity for Crypto Events | Franz x Department of Decentralization [ETHBerlin]"](https://news.dyne.org/content/images/2024/10/Screenshot_20241001_232333.webp)
We should educate contributors about the big value they could give to the community and bring home from gatherings.
- By creating better environments, we can help people experience the positive change we seek.
- By facilitating meaningful connections, we can guide developers to ask more insightful questions and enhance their skills in impactful ways.
- By offering more meaningful bounties and rejecting funding from projects or individuals we don't admire, we can truly thrive and make a difference.
Embrace moral and Political Responsibility
Technology shapes our eras, defines us, and dictates how we interact as a civilization. Therefore, if we claim to be at the forefront of innovation, we bear significant responsibility.
Cryptography reshapes power dynamics by defining who has control over information and actions. This inherently makes cryptography a political tool, carrying a significant moral responsibility.
“ I call for a community-wide effort to develop more effective means to resist mass surveillance. I plead for a reinvention of our disciplinary culture to attend not only to puzzles and math, but, also, to the societal implications of our work.” - Philip Rogaway
As articulated by another prominent cryptographer and hacktivist, the crypto commons movement has a clear mission: to shape and defend the techno-political evolution of IT platforms outside of the logics of property. The new conditions for anonymous collective ownership of decentralized information architectures require us to understand a new ethical sense for computational democracy.
Develop solutions for those with the greatest need
By showcasing and addressing real-life use cases where cryptocurrency provides crucial solutions and opportunities, we can broaden its impact and relevance.
This approach would demonstrate to the public how crypto can make a tangible difference in people's lives, rather than just fueling endless speculation and abstract theorizing.
In the U.S., UK, or Singapore, crypto may primarily be viewed as a speculative investment or a game with tokens and NFTs. But in Nigeria, Argentina, Venezuela, Ukraine, or Afghanistan, it has been a lifeline—a tool for survival and resistance against censorship, inflation, and war.
“When I reflect on the political shifts that we've seen since the early 2010s, one thing that strikes me is that the movements that succeed in the current climate all seem to have one thing in common: they are all object-level rather than meta-level. That is, rather than seeking to promote broad overarching principles for how social or political questions should be decided, they seek to promote specific stances on specific issues.” - Vitalik Buterin
Share knowledge to Inspire Mindful Action
Most people don't realize that crypto is inherently political—from The Cypherpunk Manifesto to the hidden message in Bitcoin's genesis block.
Probably we haven't done a good job of conveying this.
While some may be indifferent to politics, others are deeply interested. We should create accessible resources to convey the raison d'être and implications of crypto to a wider audience.
Not everyone has the time or inclination to dive into a rabbit hole.
3) MAKE IT FUN AND EASYGOING
“I only do this because I'm having fun. The day I stop having fun, I'll just quit.”
- Anon dev
The cypherpunk language and narratives have often leaned toward dystopia, emphasizing fear, opposition to corrupt political systems, and battles against harmful mechanisms. This focus has fueled maximalism and extremism, leading to reactive behavior, toxic discourse, and greater division.
By infusing fun into our movement, we can bridge that gap and inspire participation with higher energy and on a much larger scale.
Hacktivism can be playful and positive
Engaging others is often more effective through jokes, creativity and play—using music, memes, theater, striking visuals, and humor. Ideally, the jokes should be bold and irreverent, especially when aimed at the oppressive forces you are challenging.
Make it Easy to Opt-in
We have met many who are willing to abandon the system and embrace a parallel structure, but we often make it difficult for them to do so.
Instead of endlessly chasing new technologies that promise salvation, we should recognize that there are people ready to make a difference with what we already have.
Let's focus on the average nonconformist to create products and services that are easy to understand and use.
4) MAKE IT PRO-ACTIVE
Choosing the right mode to engage people is key. The goal is to drive pro-active change, not merely react to ongoing conflicts.
Shift from threat to practical opportunity
The language we use to discuss problems shapes our attitudes toward them. Let’s move away from paranoia, maximalism, and negativity—these mindsets only create barriers that seem insurmountable.
Instead of focusing on endless critiques, we need innovative frameworks that inspire action, along with practical tools to drive progress.
Break the loop
Let’s stop recreating existing failures. We should strive to build a vibrant ecosystem of individuals who are truly innovating, not just providing financializable start-up infrastructure to be acquired by Big Tech at some point.
We cannot rely on the mechanisms of a centralized paradigm to embrace decentralized solutions: to challenge and reshape power structures, we must introduce new variables, models, and incentives.
In a world dominated by individualism and competition we must leverage cross-stack collaboration, challenge the status quo and transcend the path of least resistance.
Let’s prove surveillance capitalism wrong
Signal, for example, is demonstrating that venture and surveillance capitalism aren’t the only possible directions for the future of technology. In stark contrast to the typical Silicon Valley model, It:
- Operates as a nonprofit funded solely by donations
- Has never accepted investment
- Provides its product for free
- Features no advertisements
- Collects no user data
Yet, it competes with and outperforms major tech giants.
Condé Nast
5) STOP PREACHING, START DOING.
“It’s not enough to simply criticize surveillance. Real impact comes from using privacy tools & supporting those who develop them. This way we not only safeguard our own privacy, but also contribute to a larger movement that can change our digital future. “
- Naomi Brockwell
We must lead by practical example, refusing to accept the current configuration of the stack as a given.
Instead of building consensus around the urgency of creating a new internet, we should focus on using the tools that can actually make it a reality.
Use decentralized, open-source, pro-privacy solutions
- Chat: Matrix, Signal, Threema, Session
- Video: Jitsi
- Email, Drive, Calendar: Proton
- dDocs, collaborative work: Fileverse, CryptPad
- Social Networking: Farcaster, Lens, Console, Status
- DEX: Uniswap, PancakeSwap, dYdX, SushiSwap, Osmosis, vexl.it, bisq
![Image linking to a video on Youtube titled "Use Open-Source Technologies | Franz x Department of Decentralization [ETHBerlin]"](https://news.dyne.org/content/images/2024/10/Screenshot_20241001_233627.webp)
Cultivate a new techno-social approach
“If we ourselves insist on using Web2 social media platforms rather than our own, then why would anyone really buy into our ideas around decentralization, permissionlessness, the ownership economy, etc.?” - Paul Dylan Ennis
Let’s move away from profile-centric social networks and focus on affinity-driven networking tools. This is the only way to inspire former users to become active participants. X oppresses us with addictive tactics, excessive ads, frequent bans, a non-chronological feed, promotion of drama and negativity, and a lot of spam and scams.
We should lead by example with Web3 alternatives that prioritize interest-based groups, critical thinking, and constructive discussions. Then perhaps, when visitors come across, they will see a community that genuinely lives its principles and come to appreciate their true worth for themselves.
Paul Dylan-Ennis
CONCLUSION
“Despite all the “democratic” promises, the crypto business is anything but decentralized and deeply dominated by racist right-whing techno-libertarians.”
- Geert Lovink, 2022
The time has come to reassess the true value and purpose of crypto: to empower individuals, redistribute power, and reclaim control from centralized entities.
We must collectively demonstrate that the real essence of our movement is not a spectacle of greed and excess, but a modern expression of a grassroots movement in the Age of Information Technology.
Let us approach this task with sincerity, courage, and practicality.
It is only by upholding our core principles and engaging a wider audience that we can keep crypto as a catalyst for positive social and political change.
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